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WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 



With the Yanks 
IN France 

A Story of America in 'J ranee 



By 

VINCENT F. SULLIVAN 

Wagoner 

58th ARTILLERY, C. A. C. 
A. E. F. 



Puhlishtd iy 

V. F. SULLIVAN & CO. 

44 Broad Street, 

New York. 



OCT 25 i92i 



To My Buddy 
E. V. G. 



TO THE DOUGHBOY 

Yes, we've travelled the road through Death 
Valley, 

Loaded with shot and shell, 
And we've run the gauntlet at Thiacourt, 

Through a murderous fire of Hell. 

But the chances we took were forgotten. 
When we thought of the boys on the Line, 

'Midst showers of shrapnel and H.E., 
Always with face toward the Rhine. 

We saw you drive on through the Argonne, 

Where life wasn't worth a dime, 
Fighting up there in the mud and filth. 

With cooties and food far from fine. 

We'll always remember you — Infantry, 
The boys with the pluck and the dare. 

We'll always salute and adore you. 
Hats off to you, Doughboy — you're "There." 

V. F. S. 

Thiacourt, Nov. 1, 1918. 



FOREWORD 

I implore my readers not to be over expectant 
before reading this narrative. It is but a series 
of facts that actually occurred during that 
horrible struggle for the cause of humanity in 
which most of us participated. 

In this story there are no tales of wild dashes 
over No Man's ,Land in the face of murderous 
machine-gun fire, or of furious hand-to-hand en- 
counters with the Prussian Guards, flower of the 
German Army. There were no spectacular In- 
fantry onslaughts in my experiences ; it was just 
that nerve-racking night-driving, over wet, slip- 
pery, shell-torn roads, with little sleep and less to 
eat. 

With no pretense to literary excellence or to 
logical order, I have written out my experiences, 
closely following my diary w^hich I kept relig- 
iously. I do not contend to be a w^riter of fiction 
nor a master of facts in the past war. You can 
readily see that I am not a widely read gentleman 
of the grammar nor a learned scholar of the lan- 
guage. Therefore, I ask you to be somewhat 
lenient with my English and phrasing, pass up my 
numerous errors in good heart, bearing in mind 
at all times that I am but a Wagoner and not 
an author. 

Perhaps to some of my readers, it will appear 
that I have written of a great and just case in a 
somewhat flippant manner, but I assure you such 
was not my intention. I have tried to tell my 
experiences in the language of a truck-driver, 
sitting behind the wheel, chatting with his buddy. 



CHAPTER I 

The business was getting tiresome. Everybody 
was tired in fact, even the clock that hung on 
the wall in the corridor would get lazy and just 
stop — tired, that's all. Ponce de Leon, not the 
Spanish Explorer, but my boss, was one of those 
"tired business men" one reads so much about 
nowadays, and the word ''rush" was among the 
missing in his vocabulary. 

There was or/e subject that interested us, and 
one only, and that was "the War." The World 
War, the European Tussel, the 1914-1918 Picnic, 
the Big Show, — that was the only and one subject 
that interested any red-blooded human at that 
time and I was just aching to get into it, just 
aching, and when I ached for a thing, I generally 
got it no matter what it was. That was the reason 
why I told ' ' Ponce de Leon, ' ' after listening to a 
military band one fine morning, that he best hang 
out a shingle for a new clerk as I was going over- 
seas to battle the Hun until Hell froze over. Then 
I was going to fight them on ice skates. 

Wlien I told the folks at home that I was about 
to go on a tour to France, they threw up their 
hands in despair. I really expected more. Told 
me I had no brains, that I was crazy and wasn't 
old enough to join the army. Nevertheless, I 
found myself standing beside an Army Recruit- 
ing poster in front of City Hall, New York, a 

11 



12 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

few days later. I was fascinated by a life-size 
picture of a U. S. soldier with his finger pointing 
directly at me, under the caption of "Your 
Country Needs You." A recruiting sergeant see- 
ing me interested in the poster, came over to 
where I was standing, 

"Like to enlist in the army, sonny," he said, 
laying his hand on my shoulder in a gentle maji- 
ner. "See the world, eats free and good pay; 
learn something; don't be a bum, go to France 
and fight for your Countiy; it's your Country, 
you know!" 

The bait was nice and I swallowed it, hook, line 
and sinker. I murmured, "Yes." Without giv- 
ing me time to reconsider, the sergeant led me 
upstairs to the recruiting office where a lieuten- 
ant presided. 

I was greatly surprised to see the number of 
"customers" awaiting their turn to enlist. 
There were young fellows and middle-age men, 
rich and poor, talking about the war and their 
chances of being in the expected Spring Drive. 

After looking at the different posters around 
the wall, I decided to enlist in the Cavalry. Yes, 
the Cavalry was my branch. Ride on a horse 
and wave a sabre over my head. Oh! Boy, that 
was the cake. No walking, all riding. Anyway, 
I liked yellow hat cords better than blue or red, 
they looked so dashing. 

In short time I was up before the lieutenant. 
He asked me how old I was and I told him 18 
years, which was correct. He said, "Fine, but 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 13 

you had better go home and get your birth cer- 
tificate so that there will be no doubt in the 
matter." 

I raced home like a maniac, secured the certi- 
ficate as though it meant a million $'s to me, 
which by luck was in the bureau drawer, and 
dashed back to the recruiting station. As soon 
as I gave the lieutenant my birth certificate he 
got out an enlistment form and placing his finger 
on a blank line said, ' ' Sign here ! ' ' 

From City Hall I was sent with a few other 
recruits, to the Twenty-third Street Recruiting 
office where I passed my first physical examina- 
tion successfully. I then received a subway 
ticket and an order to report to the Receiving 
Barracks at Fort Slocum, New York, the same 
day. Before going to the Fort, I thought it best to 
go back home to arrange my personal affairs, as it 
were, and break the news to Mother. Upon ar- 
riving home, I rushed into the house, hurriedly 
changed my clothing and after some hasty eats 
and a last word of parting, I left my home for 
Fort Slocum, the Army, and a new life. 

I reached the Fort about 11 P.M., January 
23rd, 1918, and was sadly disappointed. I didn't 
expect the Colonel and his staff to come down to 
the dock to greet me but I did expect some one 
there to show me where I could find a place to 
sleep for the night and something to eat. After 
finishing a box of Zu-Zu*s for supper a sergeant 
assigned a bunk and two blankets to me explain- 
ing that if I wasn't in bed within ten minutes' 



14 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

time I would be arrested for staying up after 
''Taps," which didn't mean a thing to me and I 
told him so. He threatened me with death. 

It was the next morning that I wished I was 
back in civilian life. The cause for this was hav- 
ing the blankets pulled off me in no gentle man- 
ner by an important looking corporal, 5 :15 in the 
A.M. Can you imagine it I This was rather early 
for me to get up. 

The next dazzling experience was to get some 
icy mess kits, wait on line for over an hour, and 
then march into a large mess hall which seated 
about 900, and get nothing to eat. It certainly 
Was puzzling. I remember having a cup of good 
coffee spilt over me but that was all. 

There was nothing to do for ten minutes after 
''mess." Then we started off at a dash. Injec- 
tions and inspections ; then uniforms, shoes, hats, 
socks, etc., thro^vn at us in a heap. I asked for 
a size 5 shoe and they gave me 8. I didn't want 
to inconvenience them any by having my shoes 
exchanged as everybody seemed to be in a 
hurry. 

The following Sunday my brothers, Jean and 
John, came up to the Fort to look me over; they 
didn't have to inspect me very much to see that 
I would never make it and told me that within a 
week I would be transferred to the 58th Regiment, 
the outfit to which Jean was attached. Well, I 
waited a month and one fine morning just as I 
was about to leave for Port Ethen Allen, Ver- 
mont, in a Cavalry draft, I was informed that the 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 15 

order for my transfer had been received from 
Washington, and a week later I embarked on a 
Government tug for Fort Totten, having been 
formally transferred from the Cavalry to Battery 
C, 58th Artilley, C. A. C. A.t Fort Totten, I 
found that Batteries C and D had been sent to 
Fort Schuyler, which was across the Sound, to 
form the 2nd Battalion of the 58th. After spending 
four days of leisure at Totten, I received orders 
to report to Capt. Smith, C. O. of Battery C, 
58th C.A.C., stationed at Fort Schuyler, New York. 

Bag and baggage I hopped across the Sound 
on the ''General Wykof," arriving at my 
brother's barracks evening of March 4th. 

I must have looked like one of Goldberg's car- 
toons as I strolled into my brother's barracks, a 
yellow cavalry cord on my hat, a rookie from can- 
vas leggings to ''new issue" overcoat. I finally 
found my brother and after many introductions to 
men, meals and bunks, I settled down to army 
routine. During my stay at Fort Schuyler, I cer- 
tainly did enjoy army life. Barring a few drills 
and inspections, I led a life of ease, going on pass 
two or three times a week. 

The rumors on the post changed daily. We 
were going to China one day, the next day we 
were listed for service in Alaska, then Panama. 
Something new every day. All this time as you 
can imagine, we were getting keyed up for battle. 
We longed for action and waited impatiently for 
the day when we would receive orders to move 
for over-seas. 



16 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

In the early part of May, 1918, one of my 
buddies rushed into my tent one night and said 
excitedly, ''Sully, we're off for France the 9th 
of this ^month. ' ' I thought that he was kidding 
me but no, the news was buzzing all over the post 
and the next morning we began preparing for our 
departure. The news came quickly, in fact, too 
quicldy, as the post was quarantined before Jean 
and I could get leave to go home and say "Good 
Bye" to our (folks. 



CHAPTER II 

It was the memorable '^ Grand Republic" that 
sailed down the East River with the 58th on 
board bound for a troop ship somewheres along 
the Hoboken water front. We were boiling over, 
with the fight spirit as we sailed down the river, 
the old raft listing from port to starboard as the 
troops moved from one side of the ship to the 
other, straining to get a last glimpse of Brooklyn 
and Manhattan. The weeks of training in the 
pent up Fort had lifted our morale to the 40th 
story. Every fibre of our bodies ached for a try 
at the Hun; we felt then that our regiment, un- 
aided, was capable of turning the tide against the 
Boche. We gave our pals husky blows across 
the back and told what we were going to do when 
we bored our way to Berlin. , 

''When I get to Berlin town," said a seedy 
looking reg'lar from Kansas, ''I'm going to drop 
everything else and put in my time hunting for 
the Kaiser. Remember now, he's my meat, I'm 
going to settle with that bloody old boy and I 
don't want any interference." 

"You've got no monopoly on this Kaiser killin' 
job," retorted a militiaman from New York. 
"You've got to walk fast if you want to beat this 
buddy out finding the Chief Butcher of Berlin.." 

This sort of talk may sound foolish but it 
showed the excellence of our spirits. We were 

17 



V 

18 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

ready for anything — the rougher, the better. I 
believe we were about as reckless an outfit of 
artillery roustabouts as ever moved toward a 
battle front. 

The old ''Republic" finally pushed her nose 
into one of the Hoboken slips and we were given 
orders to stand by with all equipment to dis- 
embark. 

After having coffee and sandwiches issued by 
the Red Cross, we were marched around the dock 
to the side of a monstrous ocean liner painted 
steel gray which later we found out to be the 
U. S. S. "Covington," formerly the German 
liner "Cincinnati." At nine that evening, all 
troops were on board and assigned to bunks and 
everything was in order for the steamer to pull 
out. As I was turning over in my bunk about 11 
P.M., I felt a sudden jar. My bunkie said, ' ' We 're 
off!" and I dozed off to sleep. 

When I arrived on deck the following morning, 
May 11th, I found that we were out of sight of 
land and in the lead of a large convoy of troop- 
ships, fourteen in number with a battle cruiser, 
the ' ' Huntington, ' ' at our stern. No one on board 
seemed to know our destination, even the Amer- 
ican Navy crew had no positive port to make, 
although they were betting five to two it was 
Brest, France. At that time, all troop ships sailed 
under sealed orders. 

The first day or two out we were drilled three 
times a day for the use of life boats. Five short 
blasts of the whistle meant submarines or life 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 19 

boat drill, whereupon everyone clambers up the 
ladder and stands in front of the life boat to 
which he is assigned. Each man knows his exact 
position and must keep it; the Naval officers who 
carry revolvers are ordered to shoot any man who 
moves from his place or causes any disturbance 
which may lead to panic. Then the call, 
*' Abandon ship," is awaited. When it sounds, 
the boats are lowered by the ship 's crew who have 
their own stations, and then comes the sliding 
down the ropes. These drills were executed by 
our boys in good shape. 

The life boat drill and target practice by the 
American gun crews served to break the monotony 
of the sea. 

About the 6th day out, the ship encountered a 
heavy storm, and I became seasick. That was all. 
Those of you who have crossed the lake, know 
what it is. It's not describable. I shall never for- 
get those three days, lying on my back in a bunk 
while the boat tossed and rocked, pitched, 
screamed and rattled and did everything but sink. 
I started a diary on board but I threw it over the 
rail with my hat and all that was in my stomach. 
When the storm subsided, I left like a new man 
but was wondering how I would ever be able to 
cross that lake to get back to good old America 
again. 

We wormed our way cautiously along, till one 
evening at dusk, we spied a light on the horizon. 
It was so long since we had seen a light that we 
hardly realized what it was. Another light, then 



20 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

another, until we counted seven and in less than 
twenty minutes, seven American submarie 
destroyers were with us. Swift, rakish 'four- 
stackers, they circled round us like the interfer- 
ence of a football team, fending off all insidious 
opponents and reconnoitering in the direction of 
any object that might come into view on the 
horizon. With these little ' ' eggshells ' ' bobbing up 
and down, never out of sight, we found a comfort- 
ing sense of safety. We didn't sight a single U- 
Boat all the way over, but we had a lot of fun at 
the expense of these sneaking craft. Naturally, 
we were all thinking about subs when we entered 
the zone, and hardly an hour would elapse when 
some brainless jokster would yell : 

*'Hey, boys, there's a sub." 

We fell for this bunk like farmers and would 
crowd to the rail and strain our eyes looking for 
a periscope. 

I was taking my turn at poker one day around 
noon when the submarine gag was pulled and I 
took a mean beating. I held a royal flush, with- 
out any juggling, something which had never be- 
fore rubbed acquaintance with me during my brief 
experience as a poker ''shark." I was about to 
proceed with this poker knockout when a voice 
screeched at my elbow. 

''Hot Dawg! Here comes a torpedo, going to 
hit us 'midships." 

Zowie I I was on my feet in an instant, throw- 
ing my cards on the table; the other players fol- 
lowed suit. We did our little marathon to the 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 21 

rail, only to find out that we were licked again. 
Nothing but the ocean in sight. When we returned 
to the table, of course, the cards were all mixed 
and we had to have a new deal. I spent an hour 
looking for the wise cracker, but tiy and find him. 

There was only one fly in our ointment on the 
trip over, and that was our chow. Kick and howl 
all day long for something to eat and we wouldn't 
receive the slightest rumble from the naval mess 
officer. "Irish stew" for breakfast and dinner. 
Supper was a bright imagination. But the 
**stew" — sweet onions! it was an insult to the 
Irish race. A cross between bilge water and 
tobacco juice. I will never forgive that anarchist 
who had charge of the mess on the old '* Coving- 
ton. " If I should ever happen to meet the 
gentleman, it will be he and I all over the lot. 

The ship was throbbing with excitement on May 
23rd, when we sighted a thin blue line on the 
horizon, the coast of France. Then the rumors 
started. We were to be sent direct to Germany 
to ask the Kaiser to surrender. We were also 
scheduled to bury the dead in Belgium. "Pop" 
Mattson wanted to bet ' ' bucks ' ' that we would be 
in the trenches within three days. The rumors 
kept up until our attention was diverted to three 
big French airplanes advancing to meet us, flying 
low and scanning the water closely for hostile sub- 
marines. It was a dangerous spot, the entrance 
of that harbor. Only the day before, we learned 
later, a German XJ-Boat had sneaked close in and 
sunk an American supply ship. 



CHAPTER III 

It was evident that our approach had been well 
heralded, for the docks were dense with people 
and on public buildings, dwellings and ware- 
houses, hundreds of American and French flags 
were snapping to the breeze. Quaint little French 
fishing boats swarmed about the transport, and 
the occupants of these craft were the first to greet 
us. These fishermen were very picturesque in 
their rakish, red tam-o-shanters and corduroy 
trousers rolled up to the knees. They wore a red 
scarf about the waist and their feet were bare. 
The faces of these foreign-looking men were 
wreathed in smiles ; they jabbered and gestulated 
after the manner of the French, shrieking ques- 
tions at us which we did not in the least under- 
stand although we shouted "Yes" to all their 
queries. One of them became so excited that he 
forgot all about steering his boat and it rammed 
another and was upset, throwing the occupant into 
the water. We threw a line to the capsized fisher- 
man and pulled him dripping and gasping to the 
deck of the transport. We gave him a hilarious 
reception, slapping his wet back and shouting, 
' ' Howdy, Frenchy. ' ' He replied with a torrent of 
enthusiasm in his own language, and a wide smile 
unfolded under his queer little eyebrow of a mous- 
tache when we filled his hand with American 
coins. He stayed on the boat until we docked and 

22 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 23 

did not seem to worry in the least about the fate 
of his smack which we had left upset in the har- 
bor. I really believe he collected the price of his 
boat from our boys. 

In the mean time, the French aircraft had 
wheeled about and were following the transport, 
serving as a sort of rear guard. The destroyers 
still circled and zigzagged about us. It sounded 
pleasant and warlike to hear the buzzing of the 
motors aloft. We yelled greetings to the airmen 
and they peered at us through their goggles wav- 
ing in reply. One of our wise cracking soldiers 
asked an airman for a match and the flyer nodded 
his head. He received the horse laugh for this 
pretty stunt. 

Yes, there it was, beautiful France in all its 
glory, and it certainly was beautiful. The hills 
around the harbor bathed in the morning sunlight, 
reminded one of our own Hudson River Palisades. 
The quaint little red tiled roofs which studded 
the hillsides reassured/ us that this "was some 
strange land. Strange land, it was. France, the 
country which for over four long years had spent 
freely its youth and wealth in the cause of hu- 
manity. Still the gallant country fought on wait- 
ing in hope for the aid of America. And here 
we were — bang! I heard a voice aside of me 
cry, "Ah! what a dump, I'm going back home 
to Harlem." 

We anchored that night inside the breakwater, 
most of us sore because we could not go ashore. 
However, the following morning we were landed 



24 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

and asaembled in marching formation with our 
full packs on. We found that we were two kilos 
from the city of Brest and eight kilos from Pon- 
tanezen Barracks where we were to be billeted in a 
''Rest Camp." We looked around for trains to 
carry us there but were politely informed that we 
were to walk, that is if we didn't mind, in order 
to look the country over and to get acquainted 
with the people. Of course, we didn't mind walk- 
ing eight or ten kilometers with 112 pounds of 
junk on our humps, no, of course not. 

I shall never forget that long memorial march. 
Two miles we hiked up a hill that would make a 
mule stagger, then we started on our cross coun- 
try gallop. The full pack and my rifle gained 
weight every ten steps and I lost weight. When 
we reached the city, however, I forgot all about 
the pack. 

The novelty of seeing American soldiers had 
not as yet worn off the inhabitants for they 
turned out to greet us with no little enthusiasm. 
I suppose this was only natural as we had trav- 
elled over three thousand miles to try to win 
their bloomin' quarrel for them. After this en- 
thusiasm came the French kids who assailed us 
furiously for ''Tobac, sou or souvenir." They 
didn't mind which one of the three they got but 
they had to have something. "We fell for their 
gag and emptied our pockets of everything we 
had. Of course, they yelled *'Vive L 'Ainerique, " 
but this didn't mean a thing to us. 

The city of Brest was a mudhole. That descrip- 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 25 

tion suffices. But there was no one to blame ai 
the women were forced to work on the docks or 
in the fields all day and they had Kttle time for 
cleaning. I suppose we were too thick to reason 
this out and we told the Frenchies what a rotten 
hole they hung out in. They said "Oui, Mon- 
sieur, oui, oui. ' ' I guess they must have thought 
we were talking about the weather. Some of the 
western boys thought it queer that the French 
could not speak English and were quite irritated 
when they asked for ''water" and received a "No 
compre. ' ' Sewell, the boy with the bed-room eyes, 
persisted in telling them that the worst yard in 
Harlem beat their country to a standstill and 
they would repeat, "Oui, oui." Probably 
thought Sewell was telling them the latest war 
news. 

After marching through and out of the city, we 
were given a ten-minute rest period. It seemed 
like ten seconds and we were on our way once 
more. Again, I was reminded of my pack which 
started to cut my shoulders, but no one seemed to 
have any time to carry it for me. About eight 
o'clock that evening, we arrtived at a hedged 
in field about a mile south of Pontanezen 
Barracks, where we were ordered to unsling 
packs and prepare to retire. Some poor yap 
wailed, 

"Where do I sl^ep?" which brought the top- 
kicker, an old regular army man around to our 
squad. 

"Break out those wigwams on your humps, you 



26 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

idiots," he bawled, ''what are you carrying them 
for to keep the sun off your domes ? ' ' 

We pulled in our necks and started to pitch our 
shelter tents. About 1 A.M., Jack Alden, my 
bunkie, and I managed to get half our tent up 
with the aid of the captain, some shoelaces and 
three bayonets, the bayonets making wonderful 
tent-pigs. Three A.M. the tent collapsed and we 
rolled up in our blankets and plenty of disgust. 
The bugle and rain served as an alarm clock. 

The first morning in France brought forth 
many new novelties, — corned Willie, hard tack 
and hard work. Ten hours work was like a half 
day to us and we never gave Sundays the slightest 
rumble. Those eight days at rest were really mis- 
erable for us. Little to eat and gangs of hard 
labor. I best not go into detail in reference to 
the day under one Sergeant Arthur T. Grayson, 
Nashville, Tenn., of the miserable digging of a 
reservoir, of how we worked eighteen hours in the 
sun digging, a sandwich of corned Willie our only 
support. That slave-driving Southerner had better 
stay down South after the war or some Harlem 
youngster who worked under him that memorable 
day, will shorten his happy life for him. I really 
believe Grayson was responsible for my bunkie 's 
physical collapse. Alden was taken to Base Hos- 
pital No. 4 the next night, suffering from some 
disease or other which he claimed he had con- 
tracted from over exertion at the reservoir the 
day before. 

On Decoration Day, we received orders to pack 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 27 

up and about noon the same day, we were on our 
way to the Railhead to entrain for parts unknown. 
Upon arriving at the railroad station I looked 
around for the passenger coaches but could see 
only cattle cars. We climbed into these. On the 
side of each car was a sign reading '*Chevaux 8 
Hommes 40." WTien we got inside the cars, we 
thought perhaps the sign painter had reversed the 
order of things. The car our platoon was assigned 
to was not much larger than a telephone booth. 
We were packed in so tightly that we barely had 
standing room, and had to shove and squirm 
about before we could create enough space to sit 
down. Nevertheless, we were in high spirits and 
glad to be on our way again. We gambled for 
the positions at the side doors, and I was lucky 
enough to win a seat in the open several times. 
Our chow on the trip consisted of corn beef, toma- 
toes and hardtack, and at some of the stations on 
the route, we received handouts of steaming hot 
coffee from the Red Cross, God bless them! 

We passed through a pretty rolling country, 
dotted with towns and villages. We saw very few 
young men, for most of them were at the front 
doing their bit, and the work on the farms was 
being done by old men, women and children. The 
inhabitants gathered at every station to see us 
pass through hoping that we might throw off a tin 
or two of meat or hardtack. We learned quite a 
little soldiering on that trip. I was an advanced 
scholar in the art of opening cans of beans with 
my teeth and I could go to sleep within ten min- 



28 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

ntes with fonr men lying on top of me. That's 
soldiering, what I mean. 

After three days of this De Luxe travelling, we 
arrived at a small town, St. Leonard, in Haute 
Vienne, our destination, which was about twenty 
kilometers from Limoges, the leading chinaware 
centre of France, and about sixty-eight kilos from 
No Place. Our platoon was billeted in ''Hotel 
Bol Dor" and it was here we celebrated our first 
wash and shave in France. Surprising how a 
little shave will liven a man and make him feel fit. 

The next morning Farrell and I started out to 
explore the town. We sauntered through the 
crooked little cobble paved streets, meeting a wine 
shop every other door, the alternate doors being 
those of the butcher, baker, cobbler and so forth. 
The French tradesman is the backbone of the 
Republic. His store is always one large room on 
the street, in the rear of which, and above, the 
family and cattle reside. At night queer looking 
iron shutters are drawn down over the whole es- 
tablishment and so closed up, the town sleeps save 
for the prowling M. P. or the Provost Marshal. 
But as all the little crooked streets in these small 
French towns eventually lead to the Hotel de 
Ville, or the town hall, we presently came out into 
the picturesque and unevenly layed out square, or 
rather triangle, in which it stands, a spot sug- 
gestive of historical romance in all its nooks and 
corners with its houses jutting out irregularly 
here and there beyond their sisters and making 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 29 

the street and sidewalk, if there is any sidewalk, 
crooked. 

Farrell, my Sein Fein bunkie, and myself 
wound up in a cafe on the main road about seven 
o^clock that evening. The place was jammed with 
American soldiers, most of them intoxicated, the 
rest on their way. Here we had French fried 
potatoes, eggs and red wine which is the favorite 
course for the American soldier. Seeing that we 
had finished our "chow," the chic-looking bar- 
maid came over to our table giving us a small 
cardboard with "Cien France" stamped on it, our 
bill. Farrell stood up and with a bored expres- 
sion on his face, produced a roll of United Cigar 
coupons. 

"Ah, much mone, Americaine," said the bar- 
maid, her eyes glistening at the sight of the 
coupons. 

"Ah, oui," spoke Farrell nonchalantly peeling 
off a coupon and handing it to the girl. She 
thanked us profusely as we left the wineshop 
quite elated over our successful bargaining. "All 
is fair in love and war," said Farrell. 

Upon emerging from this place about half -past 
eight, we were surprised to find that this little 
town of some five hundred souls had retired. It 
was not dark — it was black ! No street lamps had 
been lighted for three years lest Hun GTothas 
might spot them. As there was no moon and only 
here and there a faint light glimmering through a 
shuttered window, it was no easy task to find our 
way home ; but w^e finally arrived, with no greater 



30 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

mishap than running into a dog which a woman 
had on a leash, causing the mut to yelp with sur- 
prise. 

Next morning we had no mess but we were 
getting used to missing meals. Towards evening, 
I bought two Iamb chops which set me back about 
five francs and had the madame in the hotel cook 
them for me. The chops with frog bread and beer 
certainly did taste fine. 

The villagers used us very generously as we 
were the first American troops they had seen until 
some of the boys learned to speak French fairly 
well and put them wise to the pay we were get- 
ting. They then thought every American soldier 
was a millionaire and started to overcharge us in 
the matter of prices. I heard a story which illus- 
trates the price-gouging of Americans pretty well. 

A French soldier went into a shop in the village 
and asked the price of a souvenir handkerchief. 

"Five francs," answered the shopkeeper. 

"Too high," grunted the Frenchman and 
walked out. A Canadian soldier went in to price 
the same handkerchief ; he was told he could have 
it for twenty-five francs. He left without buying. 
An American soldier was the next to call. 

"How much?" asked the Yank, picking up the 
handkerchief. 

' ' Fifty francs, ' ' replied the shopkeeper without 
the flicker of an eyelid. 

' ' Give me five of them, ' ' said the Yankee, reach- 
ing for his wallet. 

St. Leonard was by no means a * ' leave centre. ' ' 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 31 

It was drill, drill, drill all day long in the blinding 
hot sun of June — the same old squads right and 
left which we had had for months steadily while 
at Fort Schuyler in America. We took a fine 
hike one sunny day, sixteen kilometers with heavy 
marching order. Major Wilbert was trying to 
harden us, — he succeeded but he knocked many a 
husky lad bowlegged trying. I was sick of this 
drilling and hiking and one Sunday morning I 
hopped an eastbound freight for Limoges. I had 
intentions of looking up Irving May who was at- 
tached to the 59th C. A. C, then quartered in the 
Cavalry Barracks at Limoges. After much diffi- 
culty, I found Irving at the bicycle races just out- 
side the city and we had a great chat. Certainly 
felt fine to meet him so many miles from Brooklyn. 
Getting back to St. Leonard was not as easy 
a matter as I had figured it to be. I couldn't 
seem to find what railroad passed through my 
town and none of the frogs were able to under- 
stand me. I was afraid to take a freight train 
going West, what if it didn't stop at St. Leonard; 
I would be classed as a deserter if I landed at a 
seaport town. I was certainly perplexed ; nothing 
to eat and not a franc in my jeans. About seven 
o'clock that evening I was arrested by an M. P. 
and hustled up to the Provost Marshal, charged 
with ' ' suspicious loitering. ' ' I explained my case 
to the Provo and he advised me there were no 
more trains for St. Leonard that day and I would 
have to hire a room in a hotel until the following 
morning. Me, hire a room in a hotel without a 



32 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

franc to my rank? I said, *'Yes, sir," and left 
his office, thinking I was very much out of luck, 
but as I reached the sidewalk, I chanced to see 
Malloy, one of our regimental supply men driving 
an F. W. D. full of supplies bound for St. Leon- 
ard. I hopped aboard and before many hours 
(passed was comfortably running up a bill in 
Marie's Cafe, next to Hotel Bol 'Dor, telling my 
buddies about my experience. Six of us planned 
to go to Limoges the following Sunday to beat 
up the Provost Marshall. 

The following day we were issued ''tin derbies" 
and gas masks. This didn't mean a thing to us as 
far as going to the front was concerned, as we 
were due to stay at St. Leonard until we drew 
our Howitzers from the Ordnance Base at Is-sur- 
tile. Men were being sent to Limoges to attend 
the various artillery schools and I was selected 
to go to Paris with one hundred and twenty other 
men to attend a French Tractor school. Why I 
was picked I never found out as I couldn't dis- 
tinguish a Ford from a Mack at that time. 

We were a jubilant bunch of soldiers that piled 
into a "Frog passenger train" bound for Gay 
Paree. Corporal Small and six "bucks," includ- 
ing myself, were assigned to a second class com- 
partment and we had gangs of eats and francs 
with us, I'll wail to the world. We managed to 
sleep on top of one another the first night on the 
road, but the second night, I was elected to sleep 
in the package rack, a wire frame near the ceiling 
about twelve inches wide. It was tough going. 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 33 

but I made it without any cuts or bruises. The 
third day on the road was wonderful. The sun 
was bright and the day warm. The flat country, 
extending as far as the eye could see, was all 
cultivated ; herds of cows were grazing lazily and 
peasant women with handkerchiefs tied round 
their heads were working in gardens or pitching 
hay. Here and there was a windmill. We crossed 
a long bridge; and the railroad tracks became 
more numerous ; suburban trains appeared taking 
their cargo to the metropolis ; lines of empty cars 
with queer top-compartments on sidings were be- 
ing swept and cleaned and even the brass of the 
engines polished by women and girls. We rounded 
a curve and looking out of the window, I saw with 
a thrill the famous Eiffel Tower. I could hardly 
believe my senses — Paris! 



CHAPTER IV 

Instead of being met at the Gare du Nord by 
a liveried porter with a gold hat cord from the 
Ritz or Meurice and being packed into an omnibus 
with the baggage stacked out of the way on top, 
we were met by two French officers with worn 
uniforms and were packed into five large motor 
trucks with our baggage under foot. Through the 
Boulevard de Magenta and the Place de la Repub- 
lique we were driven, people stopping in the 
streets to greet us and waving their hands to us 
from their , seats at sidewalk tables in front of 
cafes. The column at the Bastille loomed just in 
front of us, but we turned into a side street and 
we were lost from the crowds. We finally arrived 
at the tractor school which was situated in the 
Bois du Bologne, carefully concealed from aerial 
observation by great drooping trees and camou- 
flaged canvas screens. 

It was a case of love at first sight when we 
saw the barracks. They were wonderful, and that 
is putting it mildly. We were too tired to prowl 
around the city as it was quite late before we were 
completely settled, but MacPherson, the best 
Scotchman I have ever met, and I planned for a 
grand excursion for the following day. Hardly 
were we sound asleep, however, when we were 
aroused about midnight by a whir of aeroplane 
motors, which meant nothing more exciting than 

34 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 35 

the French patrols being up on guard for a pos- 
sible Hun air raid. Disappointed, we turned over 
and things again became quiet, except for Pete, 
the Pollock's, snoring. 

Morning came and with it the first mail from 
home; as many as seven blessed letters for me, 
including one from the ' ' Vamp. ' ' No wonder that 
when later in the day the other fellows went in 
groups of two, three and four to enjoy the free- 
dom of the city till ten o'clock, I preferred to 
wander off alone. 

Paris was still gay, but its glamour was some- 
what dimmed. It is not the soul-suifocating 
Paris that it was before the war, for now every 
able man is a soldier, and the women are over- 
flowing with a spirit of patriotism that makes 
them ready and eager to give him retreat from 
his month of horror in the trenches. 

If an American is not at work, not at the 
theatre, not at a cafe, and not sightseeing, you 
may be sure to find him at the ^^Y," which was 
a private house on the Avenue Montaigne, taken 
over by the Y. M. C. A. for the duration of 
the war, a large stone mansion with a delightful 
courtyard where, in the afternoons and evenings, 
young girls would serve sandwiches, cake, coffee, 
tea, lemonade, chocolate and real ice cream. All 
fine ! It is not for me to criticise in these pages, 
but why weren't they devoting more of their re- 
sources to the boys at the front who were yearn- 
ing for cigarettes and chocolate? Was it neces- 
sary for the Y. M. C. A. to have such wonderful 



36 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

places of recreation in this great city where re- 
creation could be had by merely walking along the 
wonderful boulevards! In my eyes the '^Y" was 
making a gorgeous grandstand play before the 
General Headquarters, then situated in Paris, and 
the men in and around Paris were reaping the 
benefits. Why wasn't this zealous organization 
up at the front helping out the Salvation Army? 
However, when an unprepared nation goes to war, 
there is bound to crop out some serious errors 
which can not be avoided where there are so many 
hands involved. 

The tractor school, where we were supposed to 
be learning, was a huge French joke. After learn- 
ing the principal parts of the tractor and its func- 
tions, we were taken out on the road in convoy. 
Eight or ten men would be assigned to a tractor, 
each man getting a chance to drive a mile or two. 
If we had plenty of cigarettes, the French in- 
structor would give us a good mark; if we didn't, 
we 'd be out of luck. As there were no automobile 
or tractor instructions after three P. M. or on 
Saturdays or Sundays, we were permitted to do 
what we pleased, and the natural thing to do was 
to go sightseeing, even though on every corner 
we Americans had to run the gauntlet of vendors 
of post cards and souvenirs. MacPherson, the 
thrifty Scotchman, invested his capital in Bull 
Durham tobacco. He purchased one hundred bags 
at five cents a bag and peddled them on the metro 
stations and in the Bois for one franc a bag. As a 
franc was worth twenty cents in American coin 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 37 

at that time, MacPherson was making fifteen cents 
on every bag he sold. Not such a bad business, 
and the frogs were just wild for Bull Durham. 
We longed for a pushcart so we could carry on a 
more extensive business along the Boulevards. 

We went to the Trocadero and the Eitf el Tower, 
where a poor old man, Monsieur Appay, who since 
the erection of the tower, had served as official 
guide, but was put out of business as the govern- 
ment had closed the shaft to visitors and estab- 
lished a wireless station at the top. It was en- 
tirely shut within the gates, two soldiers pacing 
around it with bayoneted guns. But even though 
we could not get into the Tower, there was still the 
"Grand Roue," nearly as high, which, it being 
Sunday, would be in motion at 2 P. M. We took 
our seats in the mammouth wheel, each revolution 
of which in the air constitutes a trip, and from 
the top had a wonderful panorama of the city, 
with the Seine girding it like a silver ribbon. 

From here we went to Napoleon's tomb, and 
another step or two brought us to the Invalides, 
the courtyard of which is now given over to the 
display of captured German trophies — guns, 
shells, aeroplanes, parts of zeppelins, pieces of 
clothing, altogether making a veritable museum. 
The popularity of this place on a Sunday after- 
noon equals that of an automobile show in New 
York on a closing Saturday night. 

Somehow or other art didn't appeal to the eyes 
of MacPherson who was a dyed in the wool Har- 



38 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

lemite. He wanted to eat and drink and have a 
good time, and he did. 

We shared our bunks and eats with a few hun- 
dred Doughboys and Marines who came in from 
the trenches in order to parade in Paris the fol- 
lowing day, July 4th. They were battle scarred 
and lousy. Men who had participated in all the 
earlier battles from Cantigny to Chauteau-Thi- 
erry. We sat on our bunks till after twelve mid- 
night, which is a pretty late hour in the army, list- 
ening in awe to the tales of battle and death, and 
the terrific blows which the 5th and 6th Marines 
had dealt the enemy. 

On July 4th all Paris greeted the boys from the 
trenches and the city went enthusiastically mad 
over the parade. That evening MacPherson and 
I attended a show at the Gaumont Theatre which 
is located in the Latin Quarter, held for the ben- 
efit of the wounded Allied soldiers. Before enter- 
ing the theatre, we strolled around the vicinity. 
It was surely the "Boul Mich," for there were 
drawings in charcoal and crayon on the battered 
walls, the caricatures and bars of music, the bold 
nudes and bits of satyric verse and flowing sig- 
natures; but there was no life. The Apache 
district disappointed us, and we went back to the 
theatre, arriving in time to secure good seats. 

The show itself was a grand success. Elsie 
Janis and several other leading American and 
French celebrities performed. Georges Carpen- 
tier, soldier and boxer, staged a four-round ex- 
hibition with an American soldier, and Irene 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 39 

King, if I remember the name correctly, famous 
American vocalist, led a Marine quartet in the 
''Star Spangled Banner" and the "Marseilles." 
The audience, composed of the very highest 
Parisian society folk, applauded wildly at every- 
thing that smacked of American. 

That night Mac and I got lost in the complicated 
metro system, and we stood reveille on Madeleine 
Station some twenty kilometers from our camp. 
With the "help of God and a few Marines," we 
finally found our barracks, arriving there ten 
hours late. 

The following Sunday Mac and I went to look 
over the much talked of Plaza la Concorde. It 
Was mighty wonderful, and we spent several hours 
looking at different curiosities and trying to light- 
finger some souvenirs, but had no luck, as every- 
thing was riveted to the walls or caged in. Out- 
side were several hundred captured German guns 
of all size and caliber. There were several Boche 
aeroplanes, having been captured without much 
damage, the huge Iron Cross easily discernible 
on the sides. I thought it was all very wonderful, 
but my bunkie said it was "rotten"— he knew. 



CHAPTER V 

On the evening of July 8tli, MacPherson and 
myself were at the Y. M. C. A. on Avenue Mont- 
aigne writing letters, when, about half past ten, a 
'^Y" secretary entered the writing room and re- 
quested every one to stop what they were doing 
and go into the bomb-proof (bomb-proof if a bomb 
didn't hit it) lobby in the interior of the building, 
as an order had been received from the police de- 
partment to extinguish all lights. No sooner had 
the request been delivered when we were in dark- 
ness, but luckily one of the boys had a pocket flash- 
light, and with the aid of it, three or four candles 
were soon lighted. Several waitresses from the 
"Buffet" came running in with blanched faces 
murmuring "Sales Bodies." The fire-engines and 
ladder companies raced madly through the streets 
blowing their sirens. By the time we reached the 
door to see wdiat was happening, the French air 
patrols were up, dropping their green and red 
signal lights; for after warning of a raid is given 
by telephone from the front lines, it requires 
from twenty minutes to half an hour for the 
squadron of fifteen or more Taubes to reach the 
city. About eleven o'clock the anti-aircraft guns 
mounted on the Arch of Triumph began to speak. 

In these raids, the enemy's planes came over 
the lines in flocks and, penetrating the outer de- 
fenses, were met by the barrage of the Paris guns. 

40 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 41 

They j3y high, shutting off their motors to avoid 
making any noise, let their bombs drop anywhere 
and dash for home. From our camp in Bologne 
we could see men at work on the banks of the 
Seine, trying out a new smoke screen for use on 
moonlight nights ; also a system of wire entangle- 
ments lifted into the air by balloons was in pro- 
cess of being perfected. 

Up to this time, we had not received our pay 
from the lieutenant in charge, and as our sight- 
seeing expeditions to Paris cost us "heaucoupe 
francs" we decided to sell our personal belongings 
to the French people in order to secure funds. 
After our personal belongings were fond mem- 
ories, we sold our army equi^jment, such as shoes, 
raincoats, barrack shoes and sweaters. My buddy, 
MacPherson, sold his raincoat to a Frenchman 
for seventy francs, which price was rather ex- 
horbitant, as the coat leaked like a sieve. The 
frog, realizing he had been swindled, brought a 
gendarme into our barracks to try and get his 
money back. After a heated argument, MacPher- 
son, who was quite a pugilist, beat the two French- 
men up, chasing them helter-skelter out of the bar- 
racks. That was the last we heard of them. Mac 
suffered a broken hand as the result of the en- 
counter and he was sent to St. Anne's Hospital 
the following day. I bid my buddy farewell with 
no little reluctance, as he was one of the cleanest 
cut boys I met while in the service. 

Good things do not last very long, and on July 
12th, much to our sorrow, we received orders to 



42 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

roll our packs and prepare to leave that evening. 
Morton, Delaney and I made a hasty trip to the 
Plaza de Concorde to get our last glimpse of 
Paris. We certainly got more than our share, 
arriving back at the camp just ten minutes be- 
fore the trucks left, the three of us quite glassy- 
eyed. I '11 never forget that wild ride through the 
heart of Paris on our way to the station. There 
was much yelling and cheering and, as we passed 
the Opera, some of the more daring fired their 
regulation revolvers into ^tlie air. The, people 
thinking we were coming from the front, cheered 
us along the boulevards as though we had saved 
their city from the Hun. 

The trip to Limoges was one of the happiest, 
gayest, wildest trips I ever made while in France. 
There were but four of us in a second class com- 
partment, and we had enough rations for six and 
enough wine for sixty. After Delaney was pretty 
well ''oiled up," he amused himself by shooting at 
cows from the window of the car with his rifle. 
Fortunately he was so drunk his shots went wild. 
We arrived at Limoges entirely too soon. The 
detachment made a wonderful exhibition, march- 
ing or rather staggering through the streets to- 
wards the Caserne, the lieutenant in command 
feeling as good as the best of us. 

That evening we were paid olf, this being the 
first pay we had received since we left Schuyler. 
I drew an enormous sum of 650 francs, and with 
Morton and Delaney hired an open barouche and 
started off to ''do" the city. Of that wild cruise, 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 43 

I faintly recollect pushing the hack up a steep hill, 
the horse being unable to go any further. I forget 
where we wound up. Delaney persisted in telling 
every M. P. we met that he was General Pershing. 
Some of the M. P. 's had the audacity to doubt his 
word. The next morning I found in my posses- 
sion twelve francs and a Japanese umbrella. 

That afternoon we were marched over to the 
Automobile Field, some three kilometers from the 
Caserne, where we were to be examined by Amer- 
ican automobile instructors on driving. I was as- 
signed to a three-ton Packard and managed to get 
a fair mark. 

We were in Limoges but three days when we 
received orders to rejoin our regiment, which was 
still quartered at St. Leonard. The 59th C. A. C. 
had left their town of Revenay for La Courtine, 
the great artillery range for hea^^y gun practice. 
We w^ere pleasantly surprised when we arrived at 
St. Leonard. The regiment had succeeded in 
drawing from the Artillery Base at Is-sur-tile 
both guns and tractors and we were all prepared 
to go to the front. At least the men thought so. 

St. Leonard was still the dreamy quaint old 
town we had left it. As our regiment had no am- 
munition trucks at that time, the would-be chauf- 
feurs, myself included, were detailed to act as 
reserve gun crews until our trucks were available. 
This meant digging gun pits and bomb proofs 
with gas masks on in the hot sun of July, which 
was anything but pleasant, but the evenings were 
cool and refreshing and Jean Palteni and I passed 



44 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

many a franc across the tables in Marias, our 
favorite cafe. Our squad would retire to the cafe 
about 8:30 and talk over our insurance and 
shrouds over glasses of Vermouth cer Zese. An- 
other subject which brought no little discussion 
was whether or not it was proper for American 
soldiers to sweep the streets of a French town 
which had not been dirtied by them. I dare not put 
forth details on this subject as it is entirely too 
lengthy. 

One bad accident marred our stay at St. 
Leonard and that was the unavoidable killing of 
a French gendarme by one of our men. It seems 
that a half dozen German prisoners had escaped 
from the prison camp at Limoges and a posse 
of ten gendarmes were sent out to s'30ur the sur- 
rounding woods for them, ('lu; t i -iie gendarmes, 
Paul Genot, ran across our picket who was guard- 
ing the guns then emplaced in the woods near the 
town. The picket, seeing a figure crawling in the 
dark underbrush, challenged the unlmown party 
to halt and receiving no reply, he fired with his 
revolver, killing the gendarme instantly. We were 
deeply grieved over the incident and the boys of 
the regiment contributed over twenty-five hundred 
francs for the Frenchie's widow. 

Wliether in St. Leonard, Paris, or at the front, 
the greatest joy in the soldier's life is the arrival 
of the mail with letters from home; next to let- 
ters, magazines and newspapers are hailed with 
delight and although a month or more old, are 
read with an eagerness that would amply reward 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 45 

those who were thoughtful enough to send them. 
A soldier would rather miss a meal than to have 
the mail distributed and receive none. 

We received the much waited for orders to 
leave St, Leonard on August 14th. That after- 
noon we were busily engaged in loading our eight- 
inch Howitzers on flat cars. The following morn- 
ing we marched down the winding roadway to- 
wards the station, bidding our French friends 
"Adieu." From the warmliearted French, who 
are so glad when you come and so sad when you 
go, the American soldier does not turn away with- 
out reluctance. 

After a short sticky trip of six hours, we ar- 
rived at our destination, La Courtine. We were 
assigned to barracks which had been used by 
Napoleon's soldiers and as all Napoleon barracks 
are built in the same manner, this one was no 
exception. There were three long, four-story 
buildings of cement on three sides of a square, 
the inside of the square being used as a drill 
ground, and on the fourth side which ran along 
the street, was a stone wall ten or twelve feet 
high, in the centre of which was an iron gateway. 
In the rear of the large middle building were the 
mess halls and other buildings necessary to camp 
housekeeping. 

We carried our packs and bags up three flights 
of stairs and entered a long room lined on each 
side with cots. This was to be our home. It was 
lunch time, however, and down we went again 
promptly but with some misgiving, to a mess con- 



46 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

sisting principally of hot soup poured into a deep 
plate so thickly covered with grease that you could 
easily write your serial number on it, black bread, 
potatoes and cold coffee. However, in the course 
of an afternoon's ramble, we located a canteen 
where we were able to get sweet chocolate on sale, 
with wines and two or three kinds of nuts. After 
another heartrending meal at six o'clock, we 
sought comfort at the Y. M. C. A. where they 
had movies. 

The next day I was placed in the automobile 
section but this didn't mean a thing as the Bat- 
tery had about three trucks for forty chauffeurs. 
The men who had no cars were picked to dig em- 
placements up on the range for our guns. We dug, 
every man jack of us, eighteen hours at a stretch. 

On firing, our regiment surpassed all target 
records on the range, making sixteen direct hits in 
succession. 

One evening at a Y. M. C. A. entertainment, the 
New York boys became excited when they saw 
scenes of New York being flashed on the movie 
curtain and they started to sing and shouty all in 
good heart. The 1^ M. C. A. secretary, a clergy- 
man from ''Oklahomy" threatened to put us out 
if we didn't subside as we were annoying the 
officers ''parked" in the front rows. Immediately 
the boys started in hopping all over the officers 
and the Y. M. C. A. Some wise cracker asked the 
officers what they would do when they hit the front 
and heard the noise. Eddie Sewell, the child with 
the bedroom eyes, sings out that he was put out 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 47 

of better places than the "Y." This spoilt the 
cake and resulted in the lights being turned on 
and the men ordered to hit the air. We hit the 
air and outside we cheered for the Red Cross, 
K. of C. and the Salvation Army, then we gave 
the Y. M. C. A. the grand razz. 

The following morning the " Y" posted a notice 
barring the members of the 58th C. A. C. from 
attending any entertainments given by the ''Y" 
and it also prohibited the members of the 58th 
from buying anything in the canteen. From that 
day on, our outfit and the " Y " could never agree. 
We found recreation at a small French Theatre 
down near the railroad and we had no little fun 
razzing the acts, they were so rotten; worse than 
the "Royal" on the New York Bowery, and that's 
going some. 

From La Courtine, we moved to a small to^vn 
called Vouecourt situated two kilometers from the 
station of Vignory, some forty odd miles from the 
front. We were in Vouecourt but three days when 
the chauffeurs were ordered to prepare for a long 
railroad journey to St. Naizare, a seaport town, 
in order to ''draw" our ammunition trucks. After 
passing a cold dreary night at Chaumont, General 
Pershing's field headquarters, we entrained for 
Paris where we were to change trains for St. 
Naizare. I was elated over the prospects of get- 
ting another glimpse of dear old Paris. 

The glimpse I got was hardly worth writing 
home about. We arrived in the railroad yards 
outside the metropolis about two o'clock in the 



AS WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

morning. At three, we were riding swiftly over 
the French rails in the direction of the coast. We 
had to beg, borrow and steal rations on that trip 
as we ran short the very first night on the road. 
In due time we arrived at Concentration Camp 
No. 1, about three kilos from St. Naizare and 
found the place second to Brest for mud, filth, and 
disease. We fought two hours trying to get a cup 
of hot coffee to kid our stomachs on as we had 
had nothing hot to drink or eat for three long cold 
days. We were told that our trucks would be 
ready for us in ten days and we would have to 
work around the camp in the meantime to earn 
our board, — as it were. 



CHAPTER VI 

It was the first sunny day in months when the 
spic and span Colonel Day, commander of the 
post, was showing some rookies from the States, 
how to mount guard, and the whole affair seemed 
so ridiculous to the boys from the 58th who were 
looking on, that they burst out with melodious 
laughter intermingled with some funny remarks. 
The Colonel went up in the air and started to walk 
over to where we were standing. The only thing 
for us to do was to run for our barracks and we 
did, the Colonel following in hot pursuit shout- 
ing ''Halt!" at the top of his lungs. Upon en- 
tering the barracks, we feigned "slumber" with 
our blanlcets over our heads. The Colonel 
strode in. 

"Who was ridiculing me outside, get up out of 
those bunks, you idiots!" he bellowed. No an- 
swer. He then threatened to place the entire de- 
tail under arrest and Johnny Morton saved the 
day. He explained the whole affair and we re- 
ceived three days hard labor in consequence. We 
worked twenty minutes the following morning 
under some wise non-coms attached to the Camp 
Engineering Corps, then we ducked the details, 
Y. M. C. A., K. of C, city, etc. 

Somehow or other, our trucks were being 
held up and we were advised that we would 
have to stay another week. We had plenty of 

49 



50 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

time to mope and we certainly took advantage 
of it. 

One evening Fitzpatrick and I strolled down to 
the city to look it over. We were surprised to find 
it completely Americanized. The Army had built 
docks, steel warehouses and miles of railroad. 
Modern transportation had also made possible 
which in warfare means indispensable, the inten- 
tive employment of heavy artillery. We use siege 
guns to-day where yesterday we employed 
eighteen-pounders and seventy-fives. That in- 
volves the construction of complicated railroad 
systems — trucks, sidings, locomotives, ammuni- 
tion cars — all over the country, operating forward 
and sideways behind the line. Two years ago, 
twelve months ago, the spot where we found our- 
selves was a sleepy third-rate seaport, whose very 
existence was known to few Americans save the 
captains of merchant ships and now, what a won- 
derful change the war had wrought. America had 
captured the city! They even controlled the fire 
and police departments having motor fire appa- 
ratus imported from the States, located in the 
more congested sections of the town. We were 
quite surprised at seeing a number of American 
telephone girls clad in the natty blue uniform of 
the Signal Corp. An M. P. informed us that they 
were '^commissioned property" and enlisted men 
were forbidden to speak to them. After spending 
a quiet hour in the K. of C, we made our way 
back to camp hoping against hope that we would 
be made officers the following day. 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 51 

The following day, however, brought a convoy 
of sixteen troop ships into port from America and 
all through the day and night, troops marched 
through our camp on their way to Troop Receiv- 
ing Camp No. 2. The new comers were mostly 
draft men from the Southern States and we were 
surprised on hearing that the infantry regimental 
numbers ran as high as eight hundred and seven 
and the machine gun battalions as high as ten 
hundred and thirty-four. 

We moped around for a few days more and 
were then loaded on trucks and carried down to 
the Automobile Park where we were to be 
assigned to trucks. Then for the long journey 
across the country from the coast to the front. 
The Park contained every sort of a gasoline- 
driven vehicle from a Ford to a gun tractor. 
Dodges, Cadillacs, Holt Tractors, Quads, Whites 
and all sorts of automobile makes were lined up 
for blocks, many of the chassis still without com- 
plete bodies. Everything was on the go, men run- 
ning around ''gassing" trucks and mechanics 
busily engaged putting the finishing touches on 
the bodies. Sergeant Sweat, who was in charge 
of our second battalion chauffeurs, appointed me 
"driver" of ''Four WTieel Drive" truck number 
49825 with Private Allen McLane as my assistant. 
We were ordered to draw tools and oil and pre- 
pare for immediate departure. 

No doubt many of my readers have seen an 
F. W. D. some time or other during the war. The 
engine distributes power to the four wheels, in- 



52 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

stead of the rear two as on ordinary cars, there- 
fore, making it a very powerful truck and enabling 
it to handle all sorts of heavy loads without diffi- 
culty. Our trucks had the regulation '^U. S. 
Army Annnunition Body" on, minus the shed, 
tarpaulin, skid chains and a few other incidentals 
which the officer in charge said we would not need. 

McLane and I tried to crank the blame stone 
crusher for half an hour, getting nary a chug from 
it. Corporal ''Babe" Jandecky, the six-foot pipe- 
fitter from Harlem, seeing our plight came over to 
our truck and spun the crank handle around a 
few times which started the motor. Mac and I 
hopped on our seats and we were all set. 

The convoy which consisted of thirty-four 
F. W. D. 's under the charge of Lieutenant ' ' Joe ' ' 
Hagen, who had a motorcycle with side car at- 
tachment, started moving about noon in the direc- 
tion of the docks. After a few hours waiting at 
the Repair Warehouse, our trucks were finally 
loaded with automobile parts to be delivered at 
Venielle on our way to the front. At three P. M. 
that day we started off at a mad dash. Sergeant 
Sweat, driving the first truck, was making twenty- 
five miles an hour and of course everybody else 
had to make twenty-five or stay behind. Twenty- 
five miles an hour with an F. W. D. is like going 
fifty miles an hour with a touring car. 

That first afternoon on the road I shall never 
forget. We went tearing through towns, across 
bridges, through streets just wide enough to pass, 
never slowing down one bit. French gendarmes 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 53 

wildly gesticulated to us to drive slowly but they 
didn't get a rumble. It seems the lieutenant in 
charge wanted to make the trip to Vouecourt in 
ten days even though he lost half the trucks try- 
ing. We agreed with him, of course. Eight o'clock 
that evening, we parked our trucks in line along 
a country road and prepared to retire. Some of 
the boys slept in the fields with their shelter half 
over them, but Mac and I decided to sleep under 
our truck. Even if we did get a bucketful of 
grease in our faces, we would at least be dry the 
following morning. 

Five A.M. came pretty quick and after a hearty 
breakfast of a slice of bread mth jam, we were 
off again. We lost a truck about ten o 'clock that 
morning through the Mrtlrs le^-s Sergeant 

Richards attached to i., . We were driv- 

ing through Savenay and for some unknown rea- 
son, one of the trucks in the line stopped short 
thus necessitating the drivers in the rear to jam 
their brakes on as the trucks in convoy were about 
ten feet apart in line. Two rather snappy look- 
ing Army nurses were giving this bonheaded Ser- 
gant the double and naturally, he was paying 
no little attention to them. Naturally again, he 
wasn't quite fast enough with his brakes and he 
rammed the truck in front of him, spreading his 
radiator all over the road. There was nothing to 
be done but to leave the wreck at a nearby repair 
station and we proceeded on, minus one truck. 
Nothing else occurred for the remainder of that 
day except a catered supper of corned Willie and 



54 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

tomatoes. That night we parked along a country 
road about a kilometer from a farmhouse and Mac 
and I thinking about the barn in the rear of the 
house, walked back, entered, found a spot and 
curled up like two wet roaches, tired and hungry. 

Sunny and warm the next day but not for me. 
I was elected to tow Kayer's truck as he had 
burnt out his bearings. Forty-three miles I towed 
that ''baby" breaking the tow chain three times. 
Jamming and slamming truck against truck, we 
travelled up grades and around sharp curves. I 
finally managed to get rid of him by complaining 
to the road master that my engine was hitting on 
two cylinders. Kayer was promptly hitched up to 
Morton much to the latter 's disgust. 

At noon we had a slightly different meal, — the 
tomatoes before the corned Willie. Engine trou- 
ble like the corned Willie bothered us that after- 
noon. Every fifteen or twenty minutes the convoy 
would be held up on account of engine trouble. 
It was contagious, but Mac and I escaped luckily 
without any serious breaks. We stopped at H. B. 
Gibbon's house, the American diplomat and 
author, and his wife, a very charming woman, 
treated us to coffee and crackers. The coffee was 
the first hot drink we had had for over four days 
and it certainly did hit the right target. We slept 
under nature 's own canopy that evening some fif- 
teen kilos past the ''Little Gray Home of the 
West," which was the name given Gibbon's 
house, and we took a terrific beating as it started 
to pour about two A.M. and we were too fatigued 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 55 

from driving all day to get up and pitch our pup 
tents. I awakened the following morning about 
five and saw one of my shoes floating down the 
ditch quite out of reach, but I managed to secure 
both of them and rinsing them thoroughly, put 
them on having wonderful visions of ''sure cure 
for rheumatism." 

Corned Willie, jam and two whistles. We were 
off again. That day we took the beating of our 
young lives. It rained and rained, stopping ten 
minutes of twelve, but twelve fifteen it rained 
harder than ever. The sheds of our trucks must 
have been waylaid on their way to France; we 
had the sockets but they were little consolation. 
However our ''1917 contract" raincoats tended to 
hold enough water for both purposes. My rain- 
coat, if I remember correctly, took four days to 
dry after that muddy day. 

The trip was becoming monotonous. Second 
drivers were not allowed to take the wheel, and 
as a result the first drivers had to sit at the 
wheel from fifteen to seventeen hours a day. My 
back started to fold up like a jackknife from con- 
stantly bending over the wheel. We passed 
through towns, cities and fields; then we would 
hit fields, cities and to^vns. Everything the same. 
The towns consisting of the inevitable church, vin- 
joint and at the most, four or five dwellings. The 
cities were a little larger and the fields much 
larger. At Angers we lost a truck through a 
headon collision which one of the boys made try- 
ing to run up the side of a building. Barracks, 



56 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

a hot meal and movies at Tours, the famous 
American S. 0. S. centre, gave us new life and 
also a chance to have a good night's sleep. 

Gasoline, corned Willie and two whistles. We 
were off again. We did a hop, skip and jump 
over a range of mountains. The range did not 
tend to keep us warm like Mother's range and 
when we tried to crank our trucks after eating, we 
found that the water had frozen in the radiators. 
Beautiful sunny France, how I adore thee! 

At last we hit Venielle where we dumped out 
''Repair Parts." Venielle was a product of what 
the American Army had accomplished in the line 
of automobiles. The camp covered several square 
miles on which were built a large number of 
repair shops and factories. It was wonderful to 
see how rapidly and how carefully trucks would 
be sent out of the repair houses ready for ship- 
ment to the front. 

We slept that night in lousy, wet barracks and 
the next morning at six, started otf minus two 
more trucks which were left at the repair shop 
to undergo some minor repairs. And so the trip 
went along. Beaune, Langres, the fortified city, 
and finally Chaumont, where the General Head- 
quarters of the A. E. F. were located. 

We arrived at Chaumont about eleven P.M. and 
Lieutenant Hagen decided to make a clear run 
right through to Sonecourt, some twenty-two kilo- 
meters away where Battery D was billeted, and we 
were soon rolling again towards ''home" as we 
called Vouecourt in the black of night, no lights 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 57 

allowed on our trucks and our first experience of 
driving at night. After much jannning and minor 
accidents, we pulled in at Sonecourt at daybreak 
with thirty trucks, just eleven days and twenty 
hours out of St. Naizare. We parked our cars 
along the roadway and with our packs on our 
back, hiked over to Vouecourt where we were ac- 
commodated with some wonderful straw mat- 
tresses in a dry billet. 

The following morning having had a hot break- 
fast we were paid by the captain and given our 
mail. I received thirty-two letters in a bunch, 
many of them dating back to three or four months. 
I was overjoyed with the receipt of a photo from 
the "Vamp" — everyone was in good spirits and 
gambling for big stakes was the main event of the 
day, but the following days were occupied clean- 
ing trucks and equipment and jJ^eparing for the 
order to go to the front. We were all on our toes 
at that time as it was rumored around that a 
great American drive was about to be launched 
and we were to participate in it. Barrack bags and 
all ''extras" were salvaged, dress shoes being 
taken and bayonets issued in their stead. The 
guns were hauled out on the road and the trucks 
lined up in back of them. Each truck had a differ- 
ent function to perform. My truck was to be the 
emergency truck and it was loaded with beams, 
tow chains and all sorts of implements for digging 
trucks out of mud or towing them. 



CHAPTER VII 

We are all impatient now, like imnners on the 
mark waiting for the pistol shot. The faint boom 
of distant guns can be heard at times and this 
makes us grumble. Why don't they let us go in? 
We are ready. We are as good as any outfit up 
on the line. We hear of great work by the Reg- 
ulars of the First, Second and Third Divisions, by 
the Twenty-sixth, Yankees of New England, and 
by the Rainbows of the Forty-second; it is also 
reported that other American Divisions made no 
small impression on the enemy's lines, the Fourth, 
the Twenty-eighth, the Thirty-second and the Sev- 
enty-seventh. The Twenty-seventh and Thirtieth, 
we understand, are somewhere with the British 
opposite the Hindenburg line near Cambrai. 
Doubtless we shall hear something of them too in 
due course. Great days, great days! But what 
a fever of exasperation we are aroused to, not up 
there ourselves ! 

Bang! the orders came like a flash. The guns 
were hastily loaded on flatcars at Vignory, the 
nearest railhead and the whole community was 
feverish with excitement. Bandoliers of ammuni- 
tion were issued and rifles given a last inspection. 
The second battalion truck train, consisting of 
thirty F. W. D. ammunition trucks and nine big 
three-ton Rikers, started out for the front, which 
was about forty miles away just twenty hours 

58 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 59 

after the batteries had left, via side-door pull- 
mans. My truck was the last in the convoy being 
the emergency truck. 

The first day ''rolling" was very bad. We had 
numerous small accidents as the roads were Wet 
and slippery, but we managed to keep all the 
trucks in line with the exception of Hartman's 
F. W. D., which contained gun parts. Hartman 
was coasting down a very dangerously steep hill 
and his front wheels were running in a rut. He 
tried to get out of the rut by pulling hard on the 
wheel but could not. His assistant, a big farmer 
from the West, leaned over intending to lend a 
helping hand and gave the wheel a jerk. The truck 
jumping out of the rut ran over the ditch and down 
a ten-foot embankment rolling over twice, throw- 
ing gun parts and rations in every direction. It 
was miraculous that Hartman or his buddy was 
not killed. We could not bother with the wreck- 
age as we were ten hours late so left it to its fate. 

We are passing through a great supply depot 
now. On its outskirts lie mushroom cities of huts 
and sheds. Here is a great cold storage depot 
with eight thousand tons of frozen beef in this 
single building. Here is a big station for assem- 
bling planes and over there a base hospital with 
over twenty-four hundred beds. Through the 
town itself there flows by night and by day a 
never failing stream of food and munitions and 
replacement troops. Needless to say, the town 
lies upon one of the main roads along which the 
Race to Berlin is being run. 



60 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

Back along that road, alas! streams another 
current, a counter-current of wastage, material 
and human. Upon its surface is borne all the litter 
of the battlefield, rusty rifles, damaged equipment, 
blood-soaked uniforms. Here is a mighty depot 
which handles and repairs such wreckage. These 
buildings have all been constructed within the past 
few months. It would take you half a day to walk 
through them. In at one end of the establishment 
goes a squalid torrent of torn clothing, unmated 
shoes, leaky rubber trench boots, odds and ends of 
equipment. In due course, after a drastic series 
of laundering, sorting, patching mainly by the 
hands of a regiment of twittering French girls, 
each item of this melancholy jumble finds itself 
reincarnated in various storehouses in the form 
of properly assorted pairs of boots and shoes, 
neat second-hand uniforms and complete sets of 
equipment. Nothing is wasted or throwm away. 
Campaign hats damaged beyond repair are cut 
up into soles for hospital slippers. Uniforms too 
badly torn for decent renovation are patched, 
dyed grass-green and issued to German prisoners. 
And so an army economizes behind the lines while 
at the front ''expense" is an afterthought. 

It is dark now and we are rolling fairly well. 
Convoy intact, but majority of drivers somewhat 
nervous when driving as lights are strictly for- 
bidden. We arrive at a town that used to be 
Bedard about noon and after eating and washing, 
start out on the last stretch to the lines. This is 
where the French fought it out in 1915 with their 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 61 

superior enemy. Nearly every building for a dis- 
tance of many kilometers has been reduced to 
powder and every inch of ground is shell-plowed. 
I had never seen such indescribable desolation, 
being nearly comparable with the devastated 
areas resulting from a huge city fire. I was sur- 
prised to see some of the civilian French still liv- 
ing in bomb-proofs near their homes. There had 
been a raid the previous day or week and the 
houses of the little village had been shelled by the 
Boche and partly destroyed ; yet they were inhab- 
ited. That might have been a street once — that 
shell-pocked thoroughfare with its cobbles piled 
awry, its curbing bitten out as though the teeth of 
a stone crunching giant, with scarcely a single 
house that has not gaping holes in the walls and 
piles of bricks and other debris laying in pitiful 
heaps in front of it, mute tokens of the devasta- 
tion wrought by the enemy airmen. But in the 
middle of the pathetic ruined apology for a street, 
the children were playing away again as merrrily 
as if nothing had happened, shouting to one an- 
other in a glee that no bombs seemed able to hush. 
This is symbolic of the spirit with which France 
is bearing her strugggle, her devastation — it is 
with the heart-free, care-free spirit of childhood. 
One may crush but not conquer a race whose chil- 
dren can find happiness amid such surroundings, 
can abandon themselves to play almost before the 
shells have stopped falling upon their playground. 
At Lagny we were informed that our Batteries 
detrained and had started out on the twenty-mile 



62 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

hike to the lines. Here the convoy was held up to 
await for that great camouflage, darkness. Going 
up towards the line, that tortured strip of terri- 
tory some five miles wide which winds from the 
North Sea to the Alps and within which two solid 
walls of men have faced one another for nearly 
four years, is more exciting than a game of chess, 
especially if it is your first time ' ' in. " It is very 
dark except when a flare or flash of a star shell 
lights up the road and searches everything with a 
gruesome greenish-yellow. The entire convoy is 
nervous and drivers are blowing their whistles, 
over the slightest provocations, thus holding up 
the entire convoy. The boom of the heavy guns is 
getting clearer and flashes all along the line are 
becoming more and more distinct. 

We are now passing an infantry outfit ''coming 
out. ' ' Their indistinct forms can be seen at times 
as they trudge doggedly along in single file on our 
left. Some are shouting ''Good luck" and "Keep 
them on the run," while others are asking ques- 
tions about our insurance and jokingly telling us 
their casualties. We heed them not, as our minds 
are on the truck ahead of us and the three-foot 
ditch on our right. If we let the wheel get away 
from us for a minute, we are in the ditch and 
once stuck, everything is over. 

After three hours of this nerve-racking driving, 
we pulled up in the town of Manonville where 
after parking our trucks, we threw ourselves down 
on the side of the road in utter exhaustion. The 
following morning we were up early and on the 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 63 

job. We were to take our ''cargo" to St. Jean 
woods where our battalion was billeted some three 
kilos from Manonville. After passing numerous 
dugouts and evacuated machine-gun nests, we 
came to the foot of the steep winding roadway 
that led to the top of Mont St. Jean, our destina- 
tion. At first I doubted the truck's ability to 
climb the steep grade, but sure enough, my old 
reliable slowly crawled up in ''first" speed. 

We were welcomed with hot rice and coffee and 
several letters which the company clerk had been 
saving for us. Wliile we were unloading our trucks 
the cry went up from the guards," Aeroplane alert, 
Aeroplane alert!" Immediately, every man in 
the open put his hands into his pockets and looked 
down at the ground. We could hear the whir of 
the boche planes above but we were unable to look 
up as our white faces would be seen by the airmen. 
After unloading we hastily cranked our trucks 
and "hit it up" for Manonville. 

The following morning I rode up to Mt. St. 
Jean on the rear of Power's (the battalion dis- 
patch rider) motorcycle in order to get some mail. 
The ride was /more thr;illing than the "G^iant 
Roller Coaster" at Coney Island, and we surely 
did make time. Powers tried to go in every shell 
hole in the road but he missed two. When I 
alighted from the ' ' plane ' ' I thanked the lad and 
told him I would much prefer to walk back, and 
walk back I did. 

I can not recall what happened in that awful 
nightmare on the firing line and I had little time 



64 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

to keep up my diary. I have but dim recollections 
of wet, slippery nights with the flash of guns as 
our headlights, and those quiet nights when the 
guns were silent, we would crawl along the muddy 
roads straining our eyes in the darkness and 
praying that an ambulance with its load of riddled 
bodies would not hit us. It was a strange and not 
altogether pleasant sensation to find one's self 
actually at the front, that long talked of place we 
had rigidly trained for months and months. We 
were "rolling" from morn to night, but who cared 
— not one of us would leave it for the cushiest 
job in France or even in the States. 

Time flew. One day we would be working on 
the Ninety-second Division front near Pont-a- 
Mousson, another day on the Verdun front haul- 
ing ammunition for French and Canadians be- 
sides our Araericnn light field artillery. Then 
our own Regiment would cry for ammunition. 

Five hours sleep, a hurried meal, oil, gas and 
out again. On nights when there was no moon- 
light and heavy mists enshrouded the mountains, 
it was a trying nerve strain to make the run from 
Vilcey to Battery D gun emplacements. The his- 
tory of every truck would be chock full of stories 
of narrow escapes from running into wagons, 
mules or ambulances, or running over the edge of 
the road or against the side of a hill. These diffi- 
culties and trials, however, were not what would 
occupy Ihe mind when the German shells began 
breaking near; they lost their interest entirely. 
One can get accustomed to the blind driving on 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 65 

black nights, but never to the weird whirr of high- 
explosive shells or the scattering of shrapnel 
through the trees. Even on the floor of the Death 
Valley where the road is level, except for fresh 
shell holes, the thrills might not cease, for here 
it had been a common experience to miss by a 
few inches a heavy ponderous truck of supplies 
or a madly driven ambulance loaded with the 
dying. A miss is as good as a mile during war- 
time more so than in peace. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

We are in the thick of it now. It is the Meuse- 
Argonne offensive, that greatest of all American 
army achievements. We are making steady prog- 
ress in the almost impenetrable and strongly held 
Argonne Forest, which was proclaimed by Euro- 
pean powers to be untakeable. Our army was tak- 
ing it. Fresh recruits from the States were hastily 
being thrown in exhausted divisions with little 
time for training, but they had the advantage of 
serving beside men who knew their business and. 
who had almost become veterans overnight. Our 
constant pressure against the enemy brought day 
by day thousands of prisoners and our dogged 
offensive was wearing him down although he 
desperately threw in his best shock troops against 
us, thus weakening his line in front of our Allies 
and making their advance less difficult. 

It is the Fall of the year. Eain is abundant, 
roads are not too numerous and these are packed 
from end to end with traffic so congested that it 
is sometimes impossible for a vehicle to find turn- 
ing space within five miles. These roads, though 
well constructed and constantly reinforced by the 
engineers, are none too reliable. They were 
never built to carry such traffic as this and since 
the inevitable ditch on either side deprives them 
of lateral support, the effect of a constant stream 
of monstrously heavy vehicles upon the surface 

66 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 67 

of one of them is that of a rolling pin upon a strip 
of dough — it makes it wider. Not only wider, but 
thinner for the edges of the road are squeezed 
out into the ditch, and the whole fabric loses 
cohesion. 

It is dusk and I am cautiously picking my way 
through the traffic with thirty eight-inch projec- 
tiles and twenty cans of powder loaded on my 
truck. This is quite a hea^^ load as one projec- 
tile weighs over two hundred pounds. Almost 
anywhere along the road, particularly near the 
sides, our wheels are apt to suddenly find a soft 
spot and sink up to the axle with consequent con- 
gestion and tumult. It is a double tide of traffic. 
Both streams are made up of similar constituents, 
with certain necessary contrasts. There are lines 
of Doughboys either ''going in" or ''coming out." 
There is no mistaking the latter. Their uniforms 
are ragged and muddy, their faces are caked and 
their eyes are red from lack of sleep. They are 
obviously "all in," but they hobble manfully 
along, mtli the comfortable satisfaction of men 
who have left behind them a glorious task well 
and truly performed. They exchange ironic greet- 
ings with the full-fed, boisterous bands of adven- 
turers whom they encounter, trudging along in the 
opposite direction, to a fate unknown. Am- 
bulances are chugging by us now. All traffic gives 
way to this service of mercy. Those going for- 
ward are empty and trim, those returning are 
travel-stained and crowded. It is rumored that 
the American Army has suffered over a hundred 



68 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

thousand casualties during the past month. The 
fighting in the Argonne Forest has been territlic. 
Grandx)re, on our left, has been taken and lost, 
half dozen times. Each ambulance coming back 
from the front carries a full complement of 
stretcher-cases, and usually besides the driver, 
sits a gaunt, miry statue with his arm in a sling 
or a blood-soaked rag about his head. Then there 
are truck trains of slippery Quads, F, W. D. 's and 
big Bikers, all loaded to their capacity. Those 
going up, contain ammunition, barbed wire, gal- 
vanized iron sheeting, engineering material or ra- 
tions ; those returning are heaped with salvage of 
every kind, furniture, the property of refugees, 
battle-field debris and wherever an available space 
presents itself, men, footsore men, stragglers or 
regular working parties. The latter are usually 
colored and with their tin derbies balanced rak- 
ishly on their kinky domes, smile upon the seeth- 
ing activity beneath them with the simple enjoy- 
ment of a child at its first circus. Then there are 
guns, and more guns. These are mainly French 
seventy-fives and hundred-fifty-fives with Ameri- 
can gun crews. Those going up are workmanlike 
but inconspicuous. They are newly painted with 
the usual dark red, green and yellow splashes. 
The fishing-nets which will be spread above them 
when they get into action interwoven mth grass, 
leaves and rags, are at present lashed along the 
gun barrels. The gunners sprawl anywhere but 
upon their hard little iron seats. The guns com- 
ing out, look different. All are plastered with 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 69 

mud ; some are on the casualty list and are being 
towed by fussy little gasoline tractors. 

I am off the main road and out of the traffic 
jam now. I am half rolling, half skidding down 
the hillside on my way to the valley where Battery 
C's guns are emp laced. Arriving at the guns, 
willing hands hastily unload the much-needed am- 
munition and I am back again on the main high- 
way amidst guns, limbers, trucks, carts, ambu- 
lances and caissons all moving in an endless, 
tumultuous profane stream. At cross roads, the 
military police struggle manfully wdth an impos- 
sible job. Automobiles everj^vhere, Cadillacs, 
Dodges and Fords, all trying to make openings 
and steal a jump from the rest of the universe. 
Above us, the sky of France, weeping for her lost 
children. Around us, the marshy shell-plowed fields 
and trenches of by-gone days. Beneath us, mud, 
mud, slimy treacherous mud. How many times 
would I have loved to drive my truck into a ditch 
and leave it to its fate in order that I be relieved 
from the automobile section and placed on a gun- 
crew with the batteries. But no, McLane, my 
buddy, would persist in telling me that we would 
make it, and we did make it arriving at Manon- 
ville, tired but happy and ready for another day. 



CHAPTER IX 

It is early November now and the cold air of 
northern Lorraine whistles through the broken 
windows of the chateau where the automobile sec- 
tion is billeted. We have just come in from a cold, 
misty night on the road and we are lounging on 
our bunks which are drawn up before the fire, try- 
ing to dry our clothing and warm our bodies. We 
are a motely crew of adventurers from our muddy 
rubber boots to our ''guard" caps which are 
drawn over our ears. There is Vandermine, for- 
mer chauffeur for the New York Fire Department, 
a very reckless driver, indeed; Tommy Brown, a 
seventeen-year-old Yonkers school boy who used to 
drive his father 's car on bright sunny days in Cen- 
tral Park, and there's Fitzpatrick, O'Brien, Mac- 
Pherson and all the rest of them. Lines of fatigue 
are beginning to show on their unshaven, haggard 
faces and their eyes are swollen from constant 
peering through black nights while on the road 
We are as lousy as can be but this does not phase 
us, it is sleep we want, but we can not sleep in the 
cold. The topic of conversation is the ' ' Shimmy, ' ' 
that new fangled American dance which had been 
described in one of Han on 'a letters from the 
States. Vandermine, eloquent and magnetic, is 
voicing his opinion on it. We are at the height of 
discussion when Frankie Powers, Second Bat- 

70 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 71 

talion dispatch bearer, enters tlie room, sMvering 
and wet. 

''They got us boys," he said, flopping down on 
one of the bunks by the fire. He then described 
his tale of woe. 

The night before, a convoy of eleven trucks 
loaded with ammunition had been sent up to our 
new gun emplacements, which were within a kilo- 
meter of the German front line. A ninety-day 
' ' Plattsburger, " fresh from the States, had 
charge of the unloading detail and for some pur- 
pose or other, he flashed his pocket-light, the 
carrying of which was strictly forbidden in Gen- 
eral Orders. Boche observers, always pn the 
alert, must have spotted the light in the woods 
as a box barrage was promptly laid around the 
convoy. Two of the trucks managed to get out of 
the trap of shrapnel but the other nine were 
strewn along Death Valley, their drivers in the 
hospital. Johnny Morton had his jaw blown off 
and his truck smashed to bits. Farrell, my Sein 
Fein bunkie, was severely gassed and taken to the 
hospital unconscious. Fortunately, none of the 
truck drivers were killed, most of the casualties 
being gassed and shrapnelled. Jerry scored a 
direct hit on Battery A's powder dump which 
lighted the entire surroundings for several min- 
utes, thus giving the enemy the full lay of our 
positions. A shell went through the cook-shack 
killing the cook and wounding several K. P.'s. 
All night long our batteries retaliated but still 
the murderous fire of the German artillery con- 



72 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

tinued. We turned in that night feeling pretty 
glum. 

The following morning", four of our squad were 
detailed to go up to Death Valley and get some of 
the trucks that were not severely damaged. Lieu- 
tenant Claiton, who had charge of the Second Bat- 
talion truck train, was on the seat of my truck to 
superintend the job. 

The same uneventful trip up to the front. The 
same shell-ploughed roads and use-to-be villages ; 
Mamey, Martincourt, Flirey, Fey-en-Hey and 
Vilcey, all powdered ruins, a shell-torn graveyard 
here, perhaps a lone church tower there. It does 
not seem possible that life could ever have been 
there. It looks as if it had always been dead. 
What testimony to human habitation remains is 
but mute and buried wreckage. 

Things seemed to be ''quiet" save for the never 
ceasing cracks of the seventy-fives and the whizzes 
of the German shells passing unpleasantly over 
us. As we approached the scene of the previous 
night's wreckage, we could hear the bangs from 
our OAVQ toad-like Howitzers. After much tugging 
and pulling, we managed to get three trucks out of 
the muddy ditch on to the road. The rest were 
absolutely hopeless and we were just getting 
ready to get out of the Valley when we heard the 
whir of a Boche plane over head. We tried to 
seek cover but too late, he spotted us, and in short 
time, Jerry began dropping H. E. along the road 
where our trucks were. Shrapnel rained through 
the trees breaking branches and making more noise 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 73 

than harm. Then over came a box barrage, one 
of Jerry's favorite mopping up processes. Mac 
and I huddled down beside our truck but this 
afforded little shelter. Someone shouted some- 
thing about a dugout do^vn the road a bit and 
we started running for it. Sergeant Sweat left 
the motor of Tarabin's truck running in his hurry- 
to get to the dugout. He then ordered us back 
on our trucks. We obeyed orders but we got under 
ours instead of on it. As the high explosives 
burst into the air, showers of steel fragments 
slipped through the branches overhead and sev- 
eral times jagged pieces went through the side 
of the truck. I treasure the piece that dented my 
tin derby and to this day I have it in my posses- 
sion. The wdiistling and moaning of shells could 
be followed for a considerable distance in either 
direction; the close ones whanged in w^ith a whu- 
ush! That was followed immediately by a con- 
cussion that stunned eyes and mind. It was as 
if we W'Cre hanging beneath a railroad trestle 
across which express trains were rushing one 
after another, each crashing into a hill and blow- 
ing up just as it got overhead. Two doughboys 
came out of the woods bearing a wounded com- 
rade, blood gushing from his mouth. Another 
doughboy came running from the woods seeming 
to shirk the fire overhead. Things didn't seem to 
be going so well. This mere boy was running 
away from the lines, a very serious military 
offense. He was what you would call a ' ' coward. '"" 
Reading this, if you are comfortably fixed in a 



74 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

morris chair with all the ease of the world, you 
would think the fellow should be shot on the spot. 
The two of us huddled under the truck were 
scarcely in a position, however, to indulge in such 
vigorous sentiments. What did strike me, this 
boy may have been a replacement and perhaps it 
was his first time under fire, was the powerless- 
ness of human beings; of bravery, fortitude, all 
the qualities associated with successful soldier- 
ing, in the face of such a deluge of steel as this. 
The ''Old Guard," the ''Light Brigade," any sort 
of aggregation of heroes you wish, would have 
lasted out there in the open about two minutes. 
Brave or not brave, civilized or savage, fighting 
to free humanity or enslave it, mere human beings 
were as much on the level as if they were facing 
an avalanche. If I had my wish, I would have 
monuments erected in all our great American 
cities; a tall shaft with a lone doughboy on top, 
rifle with fixed bayonet in hand; for in my con- 
ception, these are the boys who really brought the 
war to a successful conclusion for the Allies. 

"Ah! there w^e are, there we are," shouted Mac, 
who was kneeling beside me — Bang ! Bang ! Bang ! 
Bang ! — four times in succession. Battery D is re- 
plying like the steady roll of a base drum. Our 
friends, the 19th Light Field, are firing also, the 
sharp cracks of their ' ' seventy-fives ' ' breaking the 
rhythm of D's salvos. A motorcycle and rider 
are seen coming up the shell-torn road out of St. 
Maria's Farm. The rider is unable to control his 
machine on the slippery road and he runs it into 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 75 

the ditch where he lets it lay. He is doing a 
marathon up the road towards us, beckoning to 
Lieutenant Claiton who is calmly smoking a 
cigarette while adjusting his field glasses. The 
messenger arrives at Claiton 's side and after 
shouting something, he starts ot¥ on the run for 
St. Maria's Farm. The Lieutenant walks over 
to where Mac and I are crouching: 

''Sorry boys, but we can't bother with those 
damaged trucks now. Jerry is coming over strong 
and our lines gave way in several places. Let's 
get out of here as quickly as possible. Snappy, 
boys ! ' ' 

We needed little coaxing and in short time we 
were racing recklessly for Manonville and safety. 
It was the end of a perfect day. 

Back again in the town, we parked our trucks 
and went down to the chateau which we called 
the ''Louse House." Here we lounged around 
the tire ' ' reading our shirts, ' ' an interesting game 
like solitaire, waiting for the next call to go out. 

The nearest bath house was at Evacuation Hos- 
pital No. 12 some twenty kilos away. The gun- 
crews having a reserve, found chance to get away 
from the Batteries for a bath. The Automobile 
Section having no reserve-crew, could not pos- 
sibly take a bath unless it rained. Then we would 
strip and stand in the courtyard for a pleasant 
cooling shower, in November, too. 

November 9th came. There was talk of Ger- 
many quitting or some sort of armistice being de- 
clared. Very few of us paid any attention to this 



76 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

rumor. Wliy should v/e? Peace, and a hundred 
guns roaring just a few miles away? Peace, and 
a long line of ambulances loaded with the wounded 
passing our chateau on the way to the rear % Only 
a false rumor to bring the morale higher. 

We went out that night each driver carr^dng 
written orders wliich were as unreadable as a 
German code book. I was to follow the truck in 
front of me as long as I could but in the event 
that I lost my bearings I was to resort to the 
schedule of tov/ns listed in the orders. Somehow 
or other, I managed to ''hang on" to the truck in 
front of me and we moved along rapidly, consider- 
ing the darkness. Finally, the truck in front of 
me stopped and I drew up in back of him, asking 
w^hat the trouble was, and he shouted to me that 
lie had followed an ambulance in the darlmess 
thinking it was one of our trucks and we were 
thirty kilos from Washington Dumps, our destina- 
tion. What a plight to be in, especially on a dark 
night without the moon, but after much jabbering 
with M. P. 's and Frogs, we arrived at the Dumps 
and found to our sorrow, about fifty trucks iix 
line waiting for ammunition. Washington Am- 
munition Dump was the largest American dump 
on that front and they supplied ammunition to 
over twelve divisions. The Dump located in a 
woods, was cleverly camouflaged, the trees being 
tied together at their tops over the plank roadway 
which was painted green, thus preventing aerial 
observation. During our wait on line, a fourteen 
inch naval piece, manned by sailors, came through 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 77 

tlie woods on the other side of the dumps and 
fired five times. A sentry on guard along the 
roadway, explained to us that the gun was 
mounted on a railway carriage and it fired four 
or five times every night, disappearing from the 
woods before da^vn. 

At five the next morning, we were loaded with 
six-inch shells consigned to the 136th Field Artil- 
lery, which was in position on the left of Vilcey 
near Battery D. We made the run back to Vilcey 
in about three hours, passing the 34th Infantry 
going up to the trenches near Flirey. 

Upon arriving at Vilcey an enemy aviator 
circled over our convoy firing his machine gun at 
our lead truck. We then drove our trucks as close 
as possible against the walls of the battered 
houses of the town, seeking safety in the cellar of 
the church. As soon as the "Archies" drove the 
Boche up, we were out on our trucks and off again 
to our destination. 

We finally arrived at the 136th emplacements 
which were situated on the side of a ravine close 
by to St. Maria's Farm. The 136th, being horse 
artillery, had no respectable roads leading down 
to their gun-pits and we explained to the lieuten- 
ant in charge that once down in the ravine, we 
would be unable to pull up the steep side of the 
hill. The lieutenant seemed to know more about 
the ability of an F. W. D. than we did so we 
obej^ed orders and skidded down the hill. By the 
time I was unloaded, thick, black mud was cover- 
ing my hub-caps. Dinty Moore was stuck about 



7B> WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

ten feet in front of me and Joe Elias on my side, 
had his rear wheel buried in the mud. The 
lieutenant having his ammunition, was tending to 
his own batteries and preparing for fire. We were 
out of luck for fair, especially when Mac reminded 
me that "they were breaking pretty close." 

The action is fierce now, and my head is dizzy. 
Bang ! a piece of shrapnel ricocheted oif the body 
of my truck smashing the gasoline feed pipe and 
side lamp to bits, the gas slowly trickling from the 
jagged end of the tank nozzle. I immediately 
plugged the opening with cotton waste and started 
to get my tools out for an almost impossible task. 

It is night now, and the constant firing of the 
guns close by is somewhat annoying. Somewhat ! 
I have succeeded in repairing the broken feed pipe 
with the aid of a rubber tube that was attached 
to the never-used Prest-o-lite headlight and also 
some bandage which I had in my First Aid Kit. 
The engine is running evenly now with little loss 
of gasoline by leakage but I am still stuck in the 
mud with little chance of getting out. Elias had 
managed to get out some how or other but 
Moore's truck was still stuck, poor Dinty asleep 
on the seat, his assistant beside him also peace- 
fully slumbering. Mac was continually complain- 
ing of dead horses smelling' too much. 

Gas! Gas! — that weird cry that makes every 
soldier drop what he is doing to don his mask, 
echoed through the ravine. There was a lull in 
gun firing on our right as the crews stopped to 
adjust their gas-masks. Mac already had his 



, WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 79 

mask adjusted properly and had hopped ahead to 
ronse Moore and his helper. My mask was de- 
lightfully crushed beneath a drum of gas which I 
always carried as reserve. I managed to get it on 
in short order, however, but found I had to nause- 
ate and not being able to raise my mask from my 
face, you can imagine the result. Lucky for us it 
was a rather windy night and the gas, which was 
Phosgene, '^lifted" out of the ravine in about 
twenty minutes enabling us to take off our masks, 
much to our relief. As soon as I had my mask 
off, I went down to the shell-hole full of water fifty 
or more feet from our truck and washed my 
''soiled" mask. 

On the way back to the truck, my arms started 
to burn like a house on fire. The pain was ex- 
crutiating and I rolled up my jacket sleeves wait- 
ing for a flare from a rocket to examine my arms. 
The flare came and, great guns, my arms were 
blistering and the skin peeling off — Mustard Gas 
— sure enough, that deadliest of all gasses. I 
started on the run for the nearest dressing sta- 
tion which was located in the cellar of one of the 
houses in Vilcey about a half mile away. Arriving 
there, I found a lone officer with three sergeants 
working almost entirely without anaesthetics, 
dressing and cleaning the wounded. The cellar 
presented a terrible scene. In a corner lying on 
some straw, were three horribly mangled dough- 
boys. Three slightly wounded machine gunners 
sitting on a bench whispering to each other; the 
officer one foot in a puddle of blood, was probing 



80 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

for a machine gun bullet lodged in the leg of a 
captain who was stretched out on a rickety table. 

After receiving a hasty tield dressing by one of 
the busy sergeants, I was ordered to sit on tho 
bench where the three wounded men were and 
wait for an ambulance to take us back to a hos- 
pital. I tried to explain to the officer that it 
would be impossible for me to go to the rear as 
I had to return to my truck but he cut me short 
with a snappy "Sit dowai!" 

The chug of a motor can now be heard as it 
slows up before the cellar entrance. The am- 
bulance is here at last. The two sergeants leave 
their work and with the aid of the ambulance 
driver, carry the three badly wounded men out- 
side to the waiting car. The three machine gun- 
ners and myself are ordered to clamber into the 
ambulance, the first man stumbling over the foot 
of one of the stretcher cases. A horrible groan 
pierces the air — profanity, apologies — and we are 
off for the hospital. 

As we are going through Mamey, one of the 
men "Went West," a young lad, could not have 
been more than eighteen, covered with mud and 
blood-stained bandages; he died in that stinking 
ambulance. One man is smoking now causing 
much coughing, and a "phosgene case" starts 
nauseating. 

The hospital at last, a city in itself, a few kilo- 
meters from Minorville. The stretcher cases are 
brought into tho dimly lighted, 'close smelling 
room, where the wounded arc receiyod and laid on 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 81 

the floor. In the hopeless cases, there follows the 
last phase; the men are carried out and lie with 
others like themselves, apart from human interest 
till death claims them. Then a plain unpainted 
coffin, a Chaplain, a quick procession, a few 
curious eyes, the salute, and the end. These 
graves marked by small wooden crosses upon 
which their names and rank are stamped, lie un- 
noticed, the types of thousands, by the roadside 
or away among the fields. Everywhere in the 
war zone one passes these graves. A great belt 
of them runs from Switzerland to the sea across 
France and Belgium. 

In the operating room everything is bustling 
with excitement. The big drive is on and the 
wounded are streaming in by the hundreds. Sur- 
geons are pale and haggard from overwork but 
are standing up under the strain wonderfully. The 
wounded lay naked on their stretchers while at- 
tendants daub them with hot soapy sponges ; blood 
running from their wounds through the stretchers 
to the floor, forming little puddles. Those of us 
wh.0 could stand were lined against the rear wall 
and some ''ninety-day wonders" began redress- 
ing our wounds. The medical treatment was a 
credit to the army the "wonders" keeping pace 
with the grizzled yurp-eons of the * 'regulars." A 
young doctor dressed my wound, took my pedi- 
gree, tagged me. gave me pajamas and slippers 
ard put me on the road to a ward, all within a 
few minutes. 

Between groans from the suffering, the odor of 



82 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

antiseptics and wounded men streaming in all 
night, there was little sleep for any of us that 
night. An old-timer from the First Division was 
lying on the cot alongside of me suffering from 
tear gas. His name was Willis Hart and he 
hailed from Peoria, 111. He showed me three 
wounds and a Croix de Guerre he had been 
awarded for fighting at Cantigny. The Boche 
awarded the wounds; the French, the Croix de 
Guerre. Hart was a very interesting chap and 
I listened to his tales of battle until after mid- 
night. He told me of his experiences while in 
other hospitals and he explained that if we were 
held for more than ten days, the medical author- 
ities would consider us casual and when fully 
recovered we would undoubtedly be sent to an 
S. 0. S. base for M. P. duty. Hart said he was 
going to leave the "morgue" that night and I 
decided to go with him. About five A.M„ I was 
suddenly awakened by Hart gently tugging my 
blankets. 

**Sh! not a word, attendant is asleep, put on 
this uniform," he whispered as he shoved me a 
denim trousers and an 0. D. shirt. After fum- 
bling around for some time, I succeeded in getting 
the outfit on over my pajamas. 

''Ready? Yes? Let's go." Out we went as 
quietly as a team of mules, bumDing into a mess- 
cart on the way to the door. However, we man- 
aged to get outside the hospital and as far as 
the gate, but here to our great dismay, was a 
picket on duty with rifle and fixed bayonet. Not 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 83 

a chance in the world of getting by this bird. 
Hart told me to wait a few minutes while he 
explored the other exists. He returned shortly 
and told me that we were as good as out, as a 
Packard from the 65th C. A. C. was unloading 
bread at the commissary and would be going out 
in short order. We made our way to the truck 
and waited for some time before it started rolling 
for the exit. As it passed us, Hart and I swung 
over the tailboard concealing ourselves from ob- 
servation under some empty bread bags. We 
heard the gruff ''Alright" of the sentry as the 
truck passed out on to the road. Then everything 
was gravy. Hart was sort of delighted over his 
success and he jubilantly proclaimed that he 
would be an officer some day. He had served 
over ten years in the Regular Army and had been 
reduced from sergeant to private more than four 
times. 

It wasn't long before we found that we were on 
the road to Toul. This would never do as Toul 
was noted for its M, P. efficiency in gathering 
stragglers from the American Army. After tak- 
ing everything into consideration, Hart finally de- 
cided to get out and hoof it back to the front to 
look up his outfit. I tried to persuade him to go 
on to Toul and give himself up as his leg was in 
bad shape from a shrapnel wound and he couldn't 
make more than a mile on the road hiking. He 
sat in a corner of the truck for some time meditat- 
ing and I dared not disturb him. Suddenly he 
must have struck upon a brilliant idea for he 



84 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

jumped up and with a gruff ''So long," disap- 
peared over the tailboard. Without a moment's 
hesitation I went over after him. Sweet Cookie ! 
I found Hart lying in the centre of the road, his 
right leg bleeding like a slaughtered pig. He 
must have opened one of his wounds in the fall 
from the truck. I tied a piece of my pajama 
around his leg which abated the flow of blood 
somewhat. I then lit up a ''makings" for him 
that I found in his denim trousers and half car- 
ried and half dragged him to the side of the road, 
the dummy grinning like a child that had made a 
foolish mistake. Here we waited for luck and 
fate. He could not possibly walk more than a few 
steps and it was out of the question for me to 
carry him for his weight seemed like that of a 
piano. After some waiting in the chill misty 
morning air we heard the sharp clack of horses' 
hoofs coming in our direction. M. P.'s was 
Hart's first cry and a look of horror spread his 
face for he had a very bad dislike for these some- 
times ill-natured keepers of law and order. 

"Can't be," I encouraged him. "Can't you 
hear wagon wheels — use your thick Peoria nut." 

Out of the mist came a French combat wagon 
drawn by a starving team of horses, tv.o frog 
soldiers munching black bread were on the seat, 
the inevitable bottle of Vin Eouge on either one's 
lap. I stepped out in front of the team, drawing 
them to a halt, the frogs on the seat calling upon 
their favorite Saints for protection. They must 
have thought me a German spy or a ghost. After 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 85 

they quieted down a bit, I pointed to the figure 
of Hart lying in the ditch, and in my pure French 
explained that we wanted a lift to Manonville. 
They could hardly refuse us and in a short time, 
I had Hart lying comfortably on some straw in 
the rear of the wagon. Wliile on the way to Man- 
onville, the frogs were continuously telling me 
'' L 'Armistice est signee!" but heed them, I 
didn't. 



CHAPTES X 

I arrived in Manonviile about 10:30 A.M., 
November the eleventh, and found the chauffeurs 
who were off duty perched up in the tower of the 
chateau awaiting the dawn of peace. My buddy 
Hart had staid on the frog wagon, thinking he 
could find his outfit somewhere up at the front. 
After explaining my night's venture to the Major 
in charge, he advised me to go to the dressing 
station at Martincourt to have my arms dressed. 
He told me MacLane, my helper, had brought my 
truck in from the front and he would have charge 
of it until my arms were in good shape again for 
driving. He remarked that I wouldn't have much 
more driving to do as the war was about "fini. " 
I decided to go up in the tower with the rest of the 
boys and see for nwself. 

What a wonderful sight! All along the line 
every piece of artillery was firing, black smoke 
rising in the sunlight from behind the German 
lines. The uproar was deafening, even to us who 
were quite a distance from the front lines. At 
exactly eleven o'clock, there was a mighty salvo 
of American artillery. Every gun on the front 
spoke, from rifle to naval piece, then silence. We 
waited eagerly for another gun to fire, but no, 
there was a permanent silence. The world was 
at peace. It seemed remarkable, 3nst a few min- 
utes before, the whole surrounding country was 

86 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 87 

in the throes of a great war, but that mad Beries 
of deafening explosions had subdued and now 
everything was peaceful and serene. The curtain 
had fallen on it all and there was to be no encore. 
France — with the black shadow of forty years 
rolled away from her horizon! France — the 
much-enduring, the all- surviving, the indomitable 
with her beloved capitol saved from the invader 
and her lost provinces coming back to her ! 

Every soul in the chateau was happy that day 
with the exception of the Major, a born leader, a 
soldier from the old school. 

''If only we could be permitted to fight on for 
another five months!" the Major explained to a 
half dozen of us v/ho were loitering around the 
company office waiting for news from Headquar- 
ters. ' ' If only this great beautiful machine of an 
American Army could be given a chance to climb 
to full speed! Then we would be fighting at our 
height with our own artillery and our own tanKs, 
plenty of motor transport, and enough aeroplanes 
to control the air and direct our own artillery 
fire against the enemy. We would be using ac- 
quired experience instead of borrowed experience. 
We would have a wonderful General Statf with the 
best soldiers and business men of America lead- 
ing our men. We would then send these wonder- 
ful great hearted fighting men of ours over the 
top adequately protected by a perfectly timed 
barrage. Casualties would be reduced seventy-five 
per cent, and future victories would be a real mat- 
ter of rejoicing, especially for our folks at home. 



88 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

And — we would show our friends over here what 
the American Army is really made up of by driv- 
ing the Boche helter skelter across the Rhine, de- 
molishing his armies and bringing a peace that 
would last forever, with the German Empire but 
a bad memory. And now look what has happened ! 
Peace! Demobilization! Back to a garrison. 
What luck!" 

After hearing this sermon we wondered 
whether he thought of those poor muddy, bloody 
doughboys up on the line who were just crying 
for Peace. Peace, of course, with Victory. 

The armistice being signed, with yearning eyes 
we looked towards America for the first time in 
months wondering when we would be passing the 
''old girl with the lamp" in New York Bay. 
Wliile awaiting orders to pull out from Manon- 
ville, Farrell, Tommy Broun and myself, the 
three convalescents billeted in the chateau, would 
stroll around the surrounding country looking it 
over. My arms had to be dressed every day and 
I rode down to Martincourt to a field service sta- 
tion in the Major's flivver every noon hour. 
Everything was going along fine when the orders 
came. Twelve trucks, including my o"\vn, were 
turned over to the Army of Occupation, and on 
November 23rd we started off in convoy with the 
remaining twenty for the railhead for entrain- 
ment, as we thought. Little did we know what 
was in store for us. I was riding on MacPher- 
son's truck and things were going along pretty 
well, though the traffic was rather congested as 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 89 

troops both American and French, were making 
a wild dash for home. The first night on the road 
we billeted in a small town called Bruley, about 
twenty kilos from Toul. A few minutes after ar- 
riving there, a serious accident occurred. Three 
French children were liorribly mutilated from the 
explosion of a hand grenade which they had been 
playing with and the place was a scene of much 
mourning and crying. 

We were glad to hit the road once more. I am 
a passenger on this convoy and I have a chance 
to ''enjoy" the scenery as we roll along instead 
of muddy roads which I had to keep looking at 
constantly when I was driving. Rain, no shed, 
cold food and there is not enough space in the 
truck to sit down and so we are forced to stand 
all the day. Pagny-sur-Meuse. Here we wait for 
the lumbering guns to roll in with their crews on 
the way from the front also, and after three days 
they arrive and we are off again. 

At Houdlincourt I recall seeing some of the 
crack French Cavalry troops. They were really 
wonderful and that's putting it mildly. Every 
man was about six foot, groomed and polished 
like peace-time soldiers. Their trumpeters were 
playing the "Marseilles," and they made a won- 
derful showing as they trotted through the towm 
on their way from the front. 

November 24th found us on our travels again. 
We passed "Theda Bara" and "Victory," two 
of the 51st 's nine-inch pieces on their way to the 
railhead. 



90 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

Thanksgiving eve is here — but Sweet Cookie, 
what an eve! Rain, rain, rain, and everyone is 
wet and tired with nothing hot to eat and no dry- 
billets. Everything reminded us of home — so dif- 
ferent. Grieving would not help us any so we 
laughed it off. It was a huge joke, the joke bemg 
on us. We finally managed to secure a nice lousy 
hay loft. It was certainly fine. Thirty-four of 
our goodly company climbed up to dizzy heights 
and sank, to sleep on the twenty-odd pieces of 
straw the loft contained. How did that word hay- 
loft find its way into Houdlincourt. Between 
cooties, rats, the good old rain leaking through the 
ceiling like a shower bath and the gun crews ar- 
riving in town at three A.M., we had a wonderful 
evening. 

The following morning something unusual hap- 
pened. The sun came out. In the course of the 
afternoon a rumor circulated the town that cocoa 
could be had for the asking, some thirteen kilos 
away where there was a Salvation Army canteen. 
We passed up our breakfast, cold salmon and 
bread, and with our trusty hiking sticks, Farrell, 
Brounie and myself still on sick report, started oif 
on the road for the canteen. We really did enjoy 
that hike as gangs of cocoa and cookies were con- 
stantly playing havoc with our too vivid imagina- 
tions. We arrived at the canteen about four-fif- 
teen and the lassie in charge immediately started 
to heat some cocoa. We sure did appreciate this 
girl's trouble, and after we had cookies and cocoa 
galore, we offered her some francs in payment but 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 91 

she flatly refused. Salvation Army principals, 
fine stuff. The three of us sat at a table with the 
young girl who was from New York and hemmed 
and hawed for over three hours. Brounie gave 
me the wink which announced ^'time 'for pite- 
tures." Out they came, each one producing a pic- 
ture of his best girl with a meek, ' ' My girl. ' ' The 
lassie took great interest in everything we showed 
her and this pleased us greatly. After we had 
more than our share of cocoa, candy and crackers, 
we thanked the girl profusely for her trouble and 
went our way, thanking the Lord that there were 
people in France who did not have the everlast- 
ing "extended palm." 

Houdlincourt again. Dirty, lousy, muddy 
Houdlincourt. Worse than the Bronx — but how 
could anything be worse than the Bronx. We 
were pleasantly surprised to learn that we were 
to move on the following morning. Move we did, 
four hours before sunrise, and some bitter cold. 
That trip was bad. Fires were built at every stop 
of the convoy and men would crowd around them 
endeavoring to get warm, but with little reward. 
We rode for twelve hours and arrived at a small 
town called Brachay, located about twenty-five 
kilos from Vignory the railhead where the guns 
were to be loaded for shipment to the coast. The 
billet assigned to us was wonderful, and after a 
flapjack and some coffee, turned in for much 
needed slumber. 

Hanley, Walman, Brody, I dare say not one of 
them will ever forget that cozy billet in Brachay. 



92 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

Here in the evening before blazing logs, a group 
of four or five of us would gather after a visit 
to the shops in town and have a feast. One of 
us would buy bread, another jam, another beer 
and perhaps a little cognac. At times one of us. 
would surprise the rest with a box of goodies from 
home for we were all socialists then and whatever 
a man had he shared it with his buddies. "We 
would chat and eat and smoke, and before the 
evening was over would probably sing to the 
accompaniment of a harmonica or a comb with 
some tissue paper on it. It was difficult to obtain 
fire wood, for in France wood is not nearly so 
plentiful as in America. A shining two-franc 
piece, however, would always persuade some peas- 
ant near by to put on his wooden ^'Leviathans," 
take a lantern in his hand, and go out into the 
yard where he would chop us enough to last a 
week, and, furthermore, would insist upon carry- 
ing it to our billet. 

With the exception of an easy water detail now 
and then, there was little work to be done about 
the town. How comfortable it was to have nice, 
clean, dry billets. The rumors were the only bad 
feature about the place. Bill Hanley won the glass 
bicycle for having the best rumor in town or 
rather the worst as it turned out later to be. He 
claimed, by positive inside information, that our 
regiment was booked to sail from Bordeaux De- 
cember 24th, 1918, on the S.S. ''Leviathan," and 
we were scheduled to parade in New York on 
January 4th and in Washington on January 9th. 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 93 

Then some one else said we were to march in 
Paris on Christmas Day as an honor guard for 
General Pershing. All these rumors proved 
false and only served to lower the morale of the 
Regiment. 

General Davis, a brilliant artillery officer, had 
command of our brigade and he ordered a review 
one fine morning which was to take place twenty 
kilos or so from Brachay. The battalion was spic 
and span when it marched out of the town on its 
way to the parade grounds. It seems that while 
waiting for the review to start, ''Old Sol" dis- 
appeared and the sky fell through, rain pouring 
down on us in torrents. Of course it was an 
ordinary army review where the men wait from 
three to four hours for the commanding officer to 
appear. We waited four hours that day without 
slickers, the rain drenching our uniforms. When 
the General came along in his limousine with a 
retinue of French and British officers, he must 
have been quite disgusted with us. I'll say we 
were a sorry army of warriors hiking back to 
Brachay. The ''ninety-day" birds were in a 
sorrier plight as their thirty-dollar uniforms 
slowly but surely crawled up their backs from the 
rain. As soon as we arrived at our billet in 
Brachay, we started a roaring fire and began to 
dry our clothes and get warm. That was the end 
of another perfect day. 

The squad, with the exception of our corporal, 
were seated comfortably around the hearth smok- 
ing and talking over old times when some one 



94 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

knocked at the door. ''Details!" that was our 
first thought as we scramhled for a secret clothes 
closet in a room next to where the bunks were. 
Only our brave corporal stood at attention in the 
reception room awaiting the visitor. The door 
flew open and a gust of v/ind blew Hogan, the cap- 
tain's orderly, into the room. He handed the cor- 
poral a slip of paper and left. As I came out of 
the closet I was handed the note which read as 
follows : 

''Wagoner Sullivan, Vincent F., No. 2584. Re- 
port immediately in front of Battery office with 
all equipment ready for departure from Regi- 
ment. ' ' 

I shall never forget the wild time I had in roll- 
ing my pack and getting things together. I had no 
time to feel sore as everything was coming at me 
pell-mell, and the only thing really packed was my 
mess-kit. I was half undressed at the time the 
note was delivered as my uniform was drying 
over the fire, neverthless I had to put it on as it 
was the only one I had. With the aid of Walman 
and some of the other boys, I managed to get my 
equipment together and we bustled it down to the 
square in front of the Company office. Here I met 
four wagoners, Taribin, Brounie, Farrell and 
Vanderimine, representing Italy,, Scotland, Ire- 
land and Holland, all good boys. They informed 
me they were ordered to wait for a truck which 
was expected along at any moment. They had not 
the slightest idea as to where they were going or 
what they were supposed to do, but they 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 95 

were ready to be on their way. Finally, the cap- 
tain came out and explained our mission. The 
five of us, being chauflPeurs, were ordered to Don- 
jeaux for a few weeks where the First Army 
Artillery Headquarters were located, to drive 
staff officers who had no chauffeurs. He explained 
further that we were not being transferred but 
temporarily detached until our outfit was ready 
to leave the vicinity for the coast. This we be- 
lieved to be bunk. 

The truck came along and we piled in, meeting 
five men from the First Battalion for the same 
duty. They were as sore as we were but nothing 
could be done to mend matters so we started a 
crap game inside the truck as we rumbled along 
on our way to Donjeaux. We searched the town 
about one o'clock in the morning and we 
found nary an M. P. to direct us to the 
Town Major's office, where we expected to find 
chow and a billet. He was in bed when we did 
find him and he would not get up to show us where 
we could put up for the night, not even for Gen- 
eral Pershing himself. However, he directed us 
to the town jail where he thought we would find 
some bunks that would do us until morning. 

The sole occupant of the jail was a Russ, who 
had escaped from a German prison somewhere 
and the American Army was taking care of him. 
He could not speak a word of English, except 
''Give me a cigarette." We asked him what he 
did for a living and he replied "Give me a cig- 
arette." The 'Russ continuously annoyed our 



96 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

slumber during the remainder of the morning 
with his siren-like snores. We hopped out of our 
bunks like trained soldiers on hearing mess-call 
and there was a wild dash for the M. P. kitchen 
where we had some wonderful flappers and coffee. 
Back to the jail and gangs of more sleep. We 
rose about noon to dine and finishing steak, po- 
tatoes and a cigar apiece, we took a lengthy walk 
around the town. Our buddies from the First 
Battalion the Frog, Shifty Poe, the Wop, little 
Georgie, and Princess Pat, were the finest group 
of men I had the pleasure of meeting while in 
France. We met the billeting sergeant near Gen- 
eral Davis' Headquarters, which were located on 
tlie outskirts of the town, and he told us he could 
fix us up with ''something nice." After looking 
over four or five different town houses, we picked 
one some fifty feet from the M. P. kitchen. The 
billet was a beaut, having plenty of good fire 
wood, a nearby well and ten straw mattresses. 
We transferred our equipment from the jail to 
our new home and made a fire, sat around await- 
ing the orders. W^e waited, and waited, no orders 
came. We went to bed having a heavy supper, 
and still no orders came. Donjeaux did not know 
we were there, it seemed. 

Days passed by. Nobody ever bothered us and 
we were having the time of our lives. How we 
loved that billet with its roaring fire and its won- 
derful conveniences. Wliile sitting around the fire 
one evening. Princess Pat reminded us that 
Christmas was but four days off. What a sur- 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 97 

prise. In the days of the war, few of us thought 
about the holidays, but now that hostilities had 
ceased, we felt obligated to celebrate in some sort 
of way. The following day we met Dune Murray 
at the commissary buying huge quantities of 
cigars and candy. He explained that the Battery 
intended to squander the mess fund and have a 
grand Christmas celebration. The captain had al- 
ready purchased a pair of pigs and also a barrel 
of beer. That was enough for us and we told him 
we would be at Brachay on Christmas Day to par- 
ticipate in the offensive on the pigs. 

The night before Christmas we did not exactly 
hang our stockings on the mantel-piece but we 
received many packages. Farrell brought in a 
beautiful package from drinking too much 
''White Mule" and he tossed a fit. We were up 
till two A.M. trying to bring him to. The Frog- 
was pretty well barrelled but he carried it nicely. 
The Gumea had a nasty one on so we put him out 
in the backyard for an hour to cool off. 

Christmas morning and everything in the bun- 
galow was on the hop. Shaving, washing, scrub- 
bing and preparing in general to have dinner out 
of town, as it were. In the midst of our prepara- 
tions we heard the coughing and spluttering of a 
Quad just outside the door. Princess Pat went 
out and jabbered with the chauffeur for some time 
fsucceeding in reser^dng space for ten men 
going in the direction of Brachay. The Quad 
was destined for Villiers-sur-Mame, five miles or 
so south of Brachay, but Pat's eloquence in 



98 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

the matter changed the course considerably. 

We were out in a jiffy with our haversacks on 
our backs containing our mess-gear, and clamb- 
ered into the Quad singing '^ Onward, Christian 
Soldiers, Onward to a Meal. ' ' The ride was a bit 
chilly but upon arriving at Brachay, we had some 
twenty-year-old Champagne ' which helped to' 
warm us up in short time. Every soul in town 
was celebrating Christmas in good fashion. "We 
certainly had an enjoyable time that day. The 
meal was a knock-out from the soup to nuts, then 
a vaudeville show, candy, cigarettes, and to cap it 
all, three months' pay. What more could a sol- 
dier expect for Christmas? Nightfall found us 
on our way to Donjeaux, the ten of us ready to 
beat up any M. P. or General who interferred 
with our singing. 

A fast week and New Years. The Frog, Far- 
rell and myself attended the town church New 
Year's morning. It being Communion Sunday, 
the pastor came down the aisle with the usual 
basket of bread cut into small cubes, each mem- 
ber of the congregation taking a piece of the 
bread as it passed. Farrell, who was moping at 
the time, saw the basket coming and thinking it 
collection time dug down into his pocket for some 
change. As the basket passed him, he hurriedly 
threw in a franc, much to the amusement of the 
French people who had witnessed the act. We 
later had dinner at the Artillery Park kitchen, 
but it was nothing to compare with our Christ- 
mas feast at Brachay, although it was very good. 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 99 

After the holidays, we began to grow impatient. 
We had been fed up on rumors about going home 
and we were tired of it all. Rumors from the 
Battery were ever encouraging but they would all 
fall through. A lieutenant from our Battery 
came down to pay us and to take us to Rouvroy 
to be cootieized. He explained that the sailing 
list was being prepared at Brachay and we would 
be recalled to the Battery within a few days to 
secure full equipment preparatory for overseas 
transportation. Like suckers we bit for this yarn 
and believed him. When he left, the pessimistic 
part of the billet started to doubt his word and 
we analyzed our chances of getting home. Poor 
Shifty was positive he would be in Pittston, Pa., 
before February 1st, 1919. After a ''clear Ha- 
vana" in our ''bathrobes" before the open fire 
place, we retired, requesting the "maid" to call 
us before noon the following day. Club life — we 
called it. 

The days went by and still no orders came. 
After dinner we would take hikes around the sur- 
rounding country visiting some towns where 
American soldiers had never been. The Frog 
could speak French fluently and he had a great 
habit of stopping at different farm houses along 
the road and inquiring of the occupants how 
their health was and kidding them along in gen- 
eral. One afternoon as the Frog, Farrell and I 
were hiking along a country road, we came upon 
a rambling old farm house set well back from the 
main road. Two dirty children were playing in 



100 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

the front yard with, ragged dolls, the mother 
standing in the shadow of the doorway looking 
on. The Frog nudged us and we followed him 
down the lane to where the children were playing. 
"We could not quite get his idea. Kneeling beside 
the two youngsters, he exclaimed in his Canadian 
French, ''What wonderful children you are, God 
Savior ! What a blessing you are to your mother 
whoever she may be." On he raved, the mother 
taking it all in as she stood in the darkness of 
the doorway. Finally, she came out into the sun- 
light, all puffed up with pride. The Frog, upon 
seeing the woman, bowed deeply, we following 
his actions as gracefully as possible. Farrell 
reminded me of Gertrude Hoffman in one of her 
eccentric dances. However, we got away with it. 
Two hours later, we left the house, our stomachs 
filled with chicken, jDotatoes and wine, the Frog 
thanking the woman dozens of times for her hos- 
pitality. 

The next day Van was detailed to take charge 
of a fli^^er which the Town Major rode around 
in at /times when ,%vas billeting troops. Then 
the fun began. Instead of hiking every day, the 
ten of us would pile into the five-passenger fliv 
and explore in all directions. Not so bad. One 
night Van decided to run down to Brachay to in- 
quire about the mail and he wanted me to go 
along, just for the ride. I consented, and Sweet 
Mama! what a wild dash. We reared and plunged 
over the slippery roads like a mad steer. Forty 
miles an hour in the night was play for him. In 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 101 

and out of the ditch we went, hiting bumps and 
skidding from five to ten feet at a time. Hills 
didn't mean a thing to this lad. The crazy 
Dutchman was laughing like an idiot while I was 
saying the Rosary with my eyes closed. About a 
kilo from Brachay, we hit the back of a frog hay 
wagon and how ever we ricocheted from the side 
of the road to the field still remains a mystery as 
I had my eyes closed when we hit, my fingers 
desperately gripping the cushions. When we 
climbed out of the fliv, we discovered our lights 
smashed to pieces and the mudguards bent up like 
pretzels. We were lucky escaping injury. The 
lights were the greatest loss to us as we were 
unable to see a thing beyond ten feet in front of 
us. With Van pushing and I steering, we man- 
aged to get the ''can" up on the road and off we 
dashed again. He was continuously complaining 
about hard luck, having no lights, but I figured 
we were quite fortunate in being still conscious. 
We arrived at Brachay half hour later, got two 
letters a piece and "hopped off" for Donjeaux. 

The next night Van decided to give a birthday 
party in honor of himself on a twenty-dollar 
money order he had received from home. During 
the celebration, which took place in our billet, 
Princess Pat discovered a cornet in the attic and 
being quite talented, he rendered us a number of 
ditties dating as far back as the Civil War, ac- 
companied by Taribin who was playing his mouth 
organ. Georgie left the billet to get some cheese 
and he returned with a trap drum that he claimed 



102 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

he * lifted" from the piano in the village vln- 
joint. With Taribin's harmonica, Princess Pat's 
cornet and Georgie's drum we had quite a time. 
They played from Chopin to Ted Lewis, every- 
thing on the score card. We were interrupted 
about ten o'clock by an orderely from Headquar- 
ters who informed us that we were to report to 
the commanding officer at Villiers-sur-Marne at 
four o'clock the following morning for convoy 
work. 



CHAPTER XI 

Work was a diversion to us until we started to 
crank the Quads which we were assigned to at 
Villiers. The rain was coming down fast and 
my stone-crusher would not budge an inch. How- 
ever, we managed to get the twenty-odd Quads, 
which comprised the convoy, "rolling" about 
nine-thirty A.M., three hours late. I could not 
seem to get wise to the clutch movement for some 
time as it was different from an F. W. D., and I 
was forever hitting the Frog's truck which was 
directly ahead of mine in line. I had a bumper, 
of course, and no damage was done. Besides the 
bumper I had an assistant driver, a fisherman 
from Cape Cod, his first time on a motor truck. 
What he was put on the seat for I could never tell 
you; he wouldn't say a word except when I gave 
the '^victrola" the gas, then he would murmur, 
"Easy, sonny, easy." 

Van and myself having the two last trucks in 
line, were forever dropping behind the convoy 
and stopping at different town for eatables. 
Then we would put on speed and catch the tail 
end of our convoy, the lieutenant in charge who 
was on the lead truck, not having known we had 
put one over. While trying to catch up to the 
convoy one time, I narrowly missed spreading my 
truck all over the road. Van, the reckless Dutch- 
man, was always driving off the road and bump- 

103 



104 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

ing trucks ''just for the fun of it." It grew dark 
and we were still on our way, the rain never ceas- 
ing. We passed through Colombo where some 
77th Division men were billeted. They had a 
Statue of Liberty painted on a huge sign which 
hung in front of the Town Hall. 

At six P.M., tired, hungry, and drenched 
through, we arrived at Buzany, where the 55th 
C. A. C. ordnance shop was located. This was 
our destination and we were to take ordnance 
parts to the railhead at Vignory for shipment to 
the coast. The young lieutenant in charge of our 
convoy, a very efficient officer, had the cooks of 
the 55th make some hot stew and coffee for us. 
It tasted fine. After eating, he ordered us to find 
shelter in the vicinity and to await two blasts of 
his whistle. 

The Frog, FarreU and I discovered a light 
burning in a farm house just a few feet from 
where my truck was parked. The Frog ap- 
proached the place, Imocked on the door and after 
buzzing with the occupants, he stepped in motion- 
ing for us to follow. Ten minutes later found us 
sitting in front of a roaring fire, munching bread 
and gargling ' ' Vin Blanc, ' ' my namesake. Three 
pairs of muddy trench shoes were hanging at dif- 
ferent angles from the mantle smoking. The Frog 
was batting about nine hundred in his Canadian- 
French, telling the aged couple who gave their only 
boy to the cause, about the wonders of America 
and its people. He then showed them pictures 
of the wonderful bridges and buildings of New 
York and also a picture card of the Aquarium, 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 105 

wMch he proudly proclaimed as ^'Mon Maison." 
About eight-thirty we heard the shrill whistle 
of the lieutenant, and thanking the frogs, went 
out in the rain to our trucks. Every one seemed 
anxious to get away and in short order we had 
the trucks loaded and were waiting for the *'Go 
ahead" signal. At last the whistle blew and we 
were on our way once more. The truck in back 
of me had a dazzling headlight and this helped 
in no little way to keep on the narrow muddy 
road leading to Vignory. Three hours of tire- 
some driving brought us alongside the railhead 
where we were to unload our ordnance material. 
Vignory was so congested at that time with guns 
and trucks of every description left there by 
troops returning home, that we were obliged to 
wait until daybreak before we could unload. We 
were rolling the bones in the waiting room of the 
station with yours truly four hundred francs 
ahead of the game when the officer in charge of 
the unloading gang advised us that he was ready 
to take our cargo. 

It was near noon before the trucks were un- 
loaded and in line ready for the twenty-kilo run 
to Villiers-sur-Marne. As soon as we heard the 
two blasts of the *'Go ahead" signal, each driver 
shot the gas in good and proper. The lieutenant 
in charge was feeling fine as we learned from a 
'triple six" bottle which we found on his truck 
seat later, and he did not care whether the convoy 
went off or up the side of a mountain. He was 
continuously telling the driver of the lead truck 
to ''go faster." Van had the lead truck and this 



106 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

baby needed no coaxing to go faster. We passed 
our guns on the way to Vignory for shipment to 
the coast, and we gave the crews the horse laugh 
as we dashed past them, half on the road and half 
in the ditch. Princess Pat was the last in the 
convoy passing the guns and he misjudged the 
space between a gun and the ditch which re- 
sulted in one of his rear wheels being knocked 
off. We did not give him a tumble as he stood 
in the middle of the road frantically waving his 
arms for a truck to come back to tow him. WHien 
we arrived at Villiers, the lieutenant counted the 
trucks and found three missing. However, we 
were told to park our trucks where we had found 
them and that we would then get a Riker to take 
us to Donjeaux. 

Hitting the ''ole billet" was like home again 
and we threw ourselves on our bunks and were 
soon fast asleep, our muddy shoes still on our feet 
making a fine mess to clean up in the morning. 

January 14th, our club life was brought to an 
abrupt finish, to our sorrrow. The Town Major 
informed us that we were to report at Brachay in 
order to rejoin our Regiment as they expected to 
leave for the coast within a week. We believed 
him and there was much hustling as we rolled our 
packs and prepared to evacuate. At noon that 
day we clambered aboard a waiting Quad and with 
our jazz band rendering ^'Toscin's Farewell," 
rode jubilantly out of the town. 

Arriving at Brachay we were graciously re- 
ceived by the members of the Battery who wel- 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 107 

corned us in their best manner. They thought our 
coming back to the outfit was a sure sign that 
the regiment was leaving for the States in short 
order. It did not mean a thing, as we were as- 
signed to squads and were out drilling the next 
day. Same old monotonous army routine, but 
Oh ! Boy ! what a drop for us. It seemed like com- 
ing from a luxurious life to pauperism in one day. 
Up at reveille, 7 A.M., every morning when we 
were used to arising at noon every day came hard, 
as ten o'clock was an early day for us to arise 
when we were ^'clubbing" at Donjaux. How- 
ever, we were soldiers and in short order we were 
hitting the hard spots with a laugh and a wise 
crack. 

The Battery's morale was slowly but surely 
lowering. We were being kidded too much. The 
Colonel was forever telling us we were on our 
way home. We knew we were on our way, but 
how long would it take! Discipline was failing 
and the junior officers found their positions very 
trying. School started and we thought it a great 
joke when we first heard about it. However, it 
turned out different. The strictest order was en- 
forced and the officers made sure nobody laid down 
on the job. This resulted in men becoming fur- 
ious and they preferred drilling rather than at- 
tend school. Major Wilbert, who took command 
of the battalion at this critical time, made sev- 
eral speeches to the men brimming with encour- 
agement. He succeeded in controlling the men 
somewhat. 



108 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

Tlie longed-for orders to entrain came when we 
least expected them. We thoroughly cleaned the 
town and then prepared for departure to the rail- 
head where we were to entrain for Bordeaux, our 
embarkation port. We boarded Quads with all 
our equipment thinking wo would be on a trans- 
port within a few weeks. We w^ere again jubilant 
and our morale started to climb to dizzy heights. 
On the way to the railhead, the truck which our 
squad was riding in hit a passing Riker's tail end 
and we landed in a four-foot ditch, our steering 
rod twisted like a corkscrew. Ed Brody and my- 
self left the scene of disaster and found shelter 
from the cold January air in a ''super six" joint 
near by, the rest of the squad working on the 
truck. Our trains were to leave at eleven o'clock, 
according to ofhcial rumor and it was then ten- 
thirty. We weren't worrying whether we ever did 
see that station or not after sitting in the cafe a 
half hour or so. 

Upon hearing the shouts of our comrades out- 
side, we hurriedly loft the wine shop taking the 
glasses with us and forgetting to pay for the 
drinks. On the road we found the truck the steer- 
ing gear straightened and everything in order to 
continue our journey. We arrived at the railhead 
about ten minutes before twelve and when the 
troops already assigned to box cars saw us, they 
let go a wild yell. In short order we hopped 
aboard a car and then the train pulled out with a 
long drawn blast of the whistle. The train con- 
sisted of twenty American freight cars and a few 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 109 

coaches for the officers. The cars were in splendid 
shape as they had plenty of hay strewn about the 
floors to sleep on. WTiat a difference from the 
French ''40 Homme — Chevaux." There were 
only thirty of us in our car, including Sergeants 
Cane and Atter, both good men. We had gangs of 
eats, including candy and doughnuts. These lux- 
uries were previously purchased out of the mess 
fund by our farseeing Mess Sergeant, Gus Bow- 
den, himself. W^e received big cheers along the 
road from the French country people and many 
requests for "tabac." We threw our Bull Dur- 
ham to the four winds and then started giving out 
corned Willie to the astounding French. 

Two days later we arrived at Libourne some fif- 
teen kilos from Bordeaux, but on account of troop 
congestion our train was forced to take us back to 
St. Emilion, where we detrained after cleaning the 
cars. We worked around the station for some 
time and were then ordered to "fall in" with full 
packs ready for a short hike. 

Then began the memorable ''hike to Branne." 
That march stands out so vividly in my memory I 
can remember every detail of it, but I dare not 
write all. In the first place, when we started off, 
the majority of us were tired from working and 
standing in line with our packs on; in the second 
place, we were weak from two days on cold canned 
food and no exercise, but we marched off pretty 
good, hitting about one hundred and thirty steps 
to the minute. Officers having nothing but field 
glasses to carry were setting the pace. Rumors 



no WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

no doubt originated by our battalion commander, 
ran down from man to man that Branne, our des- 
tination, was only three and one-half kilos from 
St. Emilion station. Then everybody was happy. 
We passed the first three kilos up pretty nice but 
upon hitting the fourth, inquiries were shooting 
here and there as to how further we would have 
to go. Officers were silent. We trudged on until 
six kilo-stones went by, then the wise cracks 
started. A few men dropped out exhausted and 
foot- worn. The men in line did not give the strag- 
glers the razz as they ordinarily would have but 
passed remarks to their buddies about the officers 
trying to knock us out. On the eighth kilo, we had 
a five-minute rest but this only tended to make 
matters worse when we started off again. After 
we had passed the tenth kilo, the men went ''off 
the handle" entirely. They were swearing and 
wisecracking about the army and its inefficiency 
and dropped out by the dozens. The captain could 
do nothing to control us — we were "off" that was 
all. The colonel was trying to make fools of us 
and he was suaceeding partly. The major, a 
reserve man, was furious when he saw about 
thirty men drop out of the column as we marched 
past a wine shop, but what could he do ; the men 
claimed their feet were "gone" and they were 
unable to hike any further. They laid down on 
the grass by the side of the road and when the 
major walked away, they sat up and gave him the 
famous "horse laugh." Discipline had disap- 
peared almost entirely, which showed how weak 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 111 

the officers were in their positions of com- 
mand. 

Our squad was pretty well licked as we trudged 
past the eleventh kilo-stone. We had our shirts 
and blouses open wide and our dish rags on our 
shoulders to ease the tugging, pulling pack straps. 
The soles of our feet were covered with blisters 
and our canteens were empty. We were looking 
for a nice place to fall out when our corporal, 
a hard man to get along with who hailed from 
Tennessee, pulled a ''Chaplin" and laid down on 
the grass alongside the road. What did that 
mean? WTiy, it simply meant that our squad 
would finish that hike if we hiked the last kilo on 
crutches in order to give the corporal the razz 
for falling out. Spite, that was all. How we ever 
made those last three kilos, I can't quite remem- 
ber. Bleary-eyed and intoxicated from exhaus- 
tion, we straggled into Branne at seven P.M., hav- 
ing trudged nineteen kilos on empty stomachs. 
The frogs in that town must have thought we were 
"cuckoo" for as soon as we took our packs off in 
the public square, we laid down and started to 
sleep. The captain counted thirty-two men out of 
the two hundred and forty-one that started from 
St. Emilion. All that night stragglers came limp- 
ing into Branne with mighty few good words for 
our commanding officer. 



CHAPTER XII 

Life in Branne was quite pleasant. We had 
some racing events and basket-ball games. The 
sun was always shining and the weather was won- 
derful. Still, the men were sore and nasty because 
of Colonel William Carson's famous '*Race for 
Hobokcn" address delivered from the balcony of 
the Town Hall. He spoke eloquently and masterly 
about our w^onderful discipline and service on and 
oif the firing line. W^e cheered him like the fools 
we were and gave him no little hand-claps. He 
smiled and in his political domineering manner, 
handed us the greatest line of bunk ever handed 
American soldiers in France. Three more rous- 
ing cheers and dis|)ersemont with all the boys de- 
claring that "Bill" was a regular guy after all. 
The text of his sermon was "Be patient boys, 
we'll be on our way home in a few weeks." I 
guess he meant years. 

"Ole Boy Walman" was the only kid in our 
squad who could really "parley" the lingo and he 
certainly did swing it. He would talk a French- 
man daffy just for a glass of champagne. Many 
morninsfs our breakfast consisted of champagne 
that retailed at $10 per bottle in the States, 
scrambled eggs and French fried potatoes. 

We went crazy as bedbugs when the order came 
to hit for Bordeaux, twenty-five or more kilos 
away, and embark for America, When we laid 

112 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 113 

our eyes on a score of big Liberty trucks whicli 
were to take us to the embarkation camp, we were 
sure the hoodoo was off the regiment and we 
were really homeward bound. Not so bad — ^not so 
bad, only fifteen men to a big Liberty. Did we 
cheer the inhabitants of Branne as we clambered 
into the trucks? I'll wail to the globe we did. 

On January 24th, about tew thirty A.M., the 
58th left Branne for Bordeaux and a transport. 
Did our hopes sink when upon entering the camp 
at Bordeaux we were told that we were the artil- 
lery outfit that was expected to relieve a colored 
regiment from stevedore work? No! That could 
only be a joke ; artillery troops from the front to 
do stevedore work — ha! ha! what a huge joke. 
Men wounded, gassed and sick from exposure to 
throw cases around on some fool docks when there 
were over eighty thousLnd men who never had a 
gasmask on lying around the big S. 0. S. depots 
doing nothing. Wliat a joke. Why, we were 
booked to sail on a steamer lea^dng Bordeaux 
about February 8th. A few days in a louse house 
and we would be off on the brinv deep, b/jund for 
Hoboken. "Smiling Bill" Carson made nnother 
dramatic ST3eech before we entered the camp, ex- 
plaining that on account of the troop congestion 
at Camp No. 1 we would be forced to stay in 
tents near Bassenn Docks for three or four days 
to await our turn to be cootieized. In the mean- 
time, however, he would use his influence to skit) 
other outfits on the waiting list for Camp No. 1. 
Aftor the oratioii, he bower! deeply, his win- 



114 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

ning smile bringing forth a scattered applause. 

On the way to the tents some one said our 
colonel was a rank four-flusher. Dinty Moore 
claimed ''Bill" ran for Governor of Nebraska in 
1901 and tried to buy votes on a street corner for 
a dollar a piece. ''Buffalo Joe" said Carson 
served bar in a picnic park in Nebraska after his 
defeat at the polls. Piece by piece, we gathered 
the pre-war history of our colonel from the solemn 
westerners who knew him before he started his 
brilliant career in the army. We came to a con- 
clusion that "Smiling Bill" was nothing but a 
nature-faking, slew-footed, anarchistic imbecile. 
He was worse than the Kaiser in his darkest 
moments. He dashed past us in his car as we 
hiked our way towards the Bassen tents and we 
greeted him with some timely and rather profanic 
expressions. He never gave us a tumble; he had 
the laugh on us. When we arrived at the tents, 
we found to our dismay that we were relieving a 
regiment of colored stevedores who were ordered 
to the States. Sweet cookie ! What a fall. What a 
beating. We swore revenge on our commander 
that very night. 

We could hardly believe it at first. The colored 
regiment was to work three more days and then 
blimp for America. They told us they had been 
expecting us for the last three weeks and they 
wanted to know what had delayed us as it meant 
delay for them in getting away. They also told 
us of horrible brutalities working all night on 
the docks with only coffee and bread in their 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 115 

stomachs and how officers forced sick men to lug 
flour on their backs. They claimed it was dog 
treatment. German prisoners worked eight hours 
a day and our stevedores had been forced to work 
from twelve hours to sometimes sixteen hours out 
of twenty-four. We believed these colored lads. 
Ah! the dock officers could make these ignorant 
negroes from the South kill themselves with work, 
but, Oh, boy! wait until they try to man-handle 
the artillery from New York. We would show 
them something. 

The very next morning we turned out in Battery 
formation arrayed in fatigue clothes which con- 
sisted of a blue or brown denim blouse and over- 
alls and a small denim work-hat. We could not 
quite fathom the idea of the regimental band in 
formation at the head of the batteries with their 
instruments ready for use. At last the command 
''Squads Right" was given and the regiment 
marched out of camp,, the band striking up ' ' Over 
There. ' ' A regular ' ' Keystone Comedy. " " Smil- 
ing Bill" who was at the head of the column re- 
minded me of a Keystone Kop. What a terrible 
beating we took as we passed the negro camps on 
the way down to the docks. From that day on, 
we were officially known as Carson's Army Circus. 

Upon arriving at the American Docks, we were 
amazed at the wonderful warehouses and steel 
cranes which had kept our troops supplied with 
foodstuffs and clothing during the war. American 
engineers had accomplished the impossible when 
they erected twelve steel warehouses in six 



116 WITH TH 'ANKS IN FRANCE 

months, French autnorities claiming it would 
take from two to three years. 

But that first morning on the docks — that was 
the biggest joke of all. Our Battery was put to 
work loading feed in a warehouse from railroad 
cars to warehouses. The officers in charge of the 
detail took check of the men at eleven A.M. Out 
of two hundred and thirty men, twenty-three were 
working. Where were the missing two hundred 
and seven men? I knew where one was, lying up 
on top of the feedbags which were stacked about 
one hundred feet in height, looking dowm on the 
men who were working. Beside me, lie some 
twelve tired young soldiers. All around me I 
could discern forms crawling around in the semi- 
darkness laughing and passing wise cracks about 
our officers trying to make us work. 

At twelve A.M., we crawled out of hiding and 
climbed down the stack of bags to the floor. Two 
hundred and thirty men were counted when we 
marched oif for dinner. How that word ' ' dinner ' ' 
rasps when we received only salmon and bread 
with ' ' tobacco juice ' ' for coffee. To cap it all, we 
had to march three kilos to get fed and no time for 
a smoke. At one o'clock we were up on the bags 
again asleep. There was so much confusion and 
so many men from the regiments working about 
the docks and warehouses, they could not keep 
track of us. We stalled and stalled and few of us 
ever worked. Somehow the dock officers could 
not get us to work and our own junior officers did 
not care whether we did or not as they were as 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 117 

sore at the colonel as we were. Lieutenant Ross, 
a real white man, treated us wonderfully. He 
never said a word to us for loafing unless the 
colonel would come along looking over things. 
Then we were forced to look busy but as soon as 
*'Bill" went along, Ross called "rest." 

The second afternoon of "labor" our gang dis- 
covered a new place to stall. This haven was the 
best we ever hit — the American Red Cross canteen 
where coffee and sandwiches could be had. What 
wonderful work this organization accomplished in 
France. Their deeds of kindness were certainly 
appreciated by the boys and I am sure the Red 
Cross will never be in want for funds to carry on 
their work in peace as they did in war. 

That same afternoon we were loitering about 
the pier when a battalion of "three-month men" 
were being marched to a gangway to embark on 
the S. S. " J. W. Luckenback. ' ' Seeing us loiter- 
ing on the docks and thinking we were S. 0. S. 
troops, they started to ridicule us, calling us 
slackers and yellow babies for stevedoring and 
trying to duck the firing line WTiat could we do ? 
Swallow it, at the same time wishing the ship 
would sink in mid-ocean. 

That night our Battery was stopped at the gates 
on the way to our barracks by the Marine guard 
to be searched. It seems the guard had the 
privilege of searching anyone leaving the docks 
who looked suspicious. They picked on us. Amer- 
ican soldiers with absolutely nothing against their 
records were forced to submit to a bunch of boot 



118 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

Marines going over their persons. It seemed out- 
rageous to us but we could do nothing. What a 
bunch of snobs were in those two Marine Regi- 
ments stationed at Bordeaux ; boys about eighteen 
and nineteen years old, fit for nothing more than 
S. 0. S. guard duty, trying to live on the reputa- 
tion of the 5th and 6th Marines, valiant heroes of 
Chateau Thiery. 

After the first night's "hold up," as we called 
it, we swore revenge on them. They may have 
been nice lads before they entered the service but 
they had the Marine gag drilled into them. Their 
officers told them they were better than the Ameri- 
can soldiers and they really believed it. 

A few nights later a youthful marine was 
rescued from the Gironde River by the crew of 
the hospital ship "Mercy." He claimed that a 
member of our outfit had thrown him oif the dock 
because he tried to stop the artilleryman from 
smoking. It was impossible for the marine to 
identify his man so the whole matter was dropped. 
Things were getting worse instead of improv- 
ing. The crisis came when the Quarter Master 
Department issued oil skins, hip boots and sou' 
westers. This regalia was the uniform of the 
Chinese coolies who were employed by the Gov- 
ernment for road mending. Some men absolutely 
refused to wear the uniform and they were promt- 
ly jailed. Others swore deep revenge on the 
colonel and his followers. One of the wilder birds 
pulled a "Wm. S. Hart" and went out after the 
colonel with a loaded gat. What was it all com- 



WITIiTHE YANKS IN FRANCE 119 

ing to? Discipline was shot to pieces. Everything 
was slovenly done. Details were hard to find. The 
regiment had the honor of having two hundred and 
sixty-seven men in the guard house, forty-seven 
A. W. 0. L., and twice that number in the hospital. 
It didn 't mean a thing to the colonel. He was re- 
ceiving extra overseas pay for every day he kept 
us on foreign soil. 

The days went by very slowly. Five bells every 
morning we turned out in denims and were hur- 
ried off to the docks where we worked till noon. 
After a light luncheon we were back on the job 
until six. By this time letters which had evaded 
the censor arrived in New York and the news- 
papers began to hop on Washington about the 
New York Artillery Regiment being held in 
France. This didn't mean a thing to us though, 
as we were still on the job. 

The climax came when we were ordered to move 
after a hard day's work, from the tents to the 
stevedore billets, previously occupied by some 
stinking diseased Chinese coolies who hailed from 
South Africa. As soon as we were installed in 
these louse-houses, the colonel issued eight hour 
passes for us to visit the city of Bordeaux. Men 
received passes and were never heard from again. 
Gilburn and I went to Bordeaux to look around. 
The city was even faster than Paris; for her 
women indeed, this southern seaport may well 
blush. The number of most irresistably attrac- 
tive women on the street who accosted us at almost 
every corner was amazing. We counted sixteen 



120 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

who spoke to us within a half hour. I remember 
distinctly a remarkable flapper arrayed like a 
million francs who withered me completely with 
an outburst of profanity and shocking language 
in which I could see mirrored anj American soldier 
who had taught her some English. Women have 
greater power than they exert with their knitting 
needles ; they can move armies. It was the women 
of Bordeaux who caused loss of so many men from 
our outfit and the curtailment of passes. 

The Y. M. C. A. had a small one-cylinder movie 
show in camp and it was here all the anarchists 
had their nightly meetings. They were called the 
"Try and get home" club. The colonel and his 
staff would strut up the aisle before the show and 
take front seats amidst hisses and wise cracks, 
profanity and insults. The fun would start when 
the lights were extinguished for the movies to 
start. Our opening chorus was that beautiful 
little doughboy ballad entitled, "Victory," run- 
ning something like this : 

We chased the Boche across the Rhine, 
We knocked the Kaiser from his throne ; 
(3h, Lafayette, we paid our debt. 
For sake, send us home ! 

Then you would hear a voice in the darkness 
yell, "J\Ian overboard!" Another voice would 
shout, "Who is he?" Answer, "The colonel!" 
Then there would be a chorus of voices, "Throw 
him an anchor or throw him a hand grenade." 
The colonel was the object of all our derision, and 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 121 

when the lights were turned on he would look 
around at us, his famous smile covering his face. 
He had it on us and he knew it. Our chaplain 
was our only support. We learned later he had 
been diligently fighting the commanding officer to 
let us go home but his rank could not sway the 
colonel as he was only a lieutenant. 

A few days latjr it leaked out that the colonel 
was to be reduced to the rank of captain as soon 
as he arrived in New York. So that was his pur- 
pose for keeping us in France. Did we ride him 
in the movies"? Well, I should stutter. We went 
at him so strong, he threatened to have the camp 
put under guard. That's what we wanted. 

February was a black month for us. Several 
of our buddies were laid low by accident while 
working around the docks. I can not recall the 
name of the youngster who had his back broken 
by a bag of flour which had fallen on him from 
the top of a stack. The brightest thing that month 
was the dinner on the S. S. * * Monongehela. " Hot 
dogs! What a banquet. The sailors claimed the 
meal was pretty poor. We wrote home about it, 
we thought it so wonderful. 

It seems the colonel declared a half holiday one 
Sunday to clean our equipment. General Pershing 
was expected the following Tuesday and we were 
to be reviewed. We hotfooted back to our louse- 
houses from the docks and were ordered to ^' clean 
up" or in the coop we would go. We were dis- 
gusted. Remarks in vogue were ''Who ever 
heard of Pershing?" ''Who is he?" "Why don't 



122 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

he get us out of here I" Those were mild in com- 
parison to some. I am sort of leary about writ- 
ing the stronger ones and besides, I am a fond 
admirer of General Pershing's. 

We had a practice parade on Monday and we 
fell down on it purposely when the parade got 
under way. We looked like a skirmish line of 
''coolies" while marching in battery front forma- 
tion past the colonel who was reviewing us. He 
was as sore as a hornet and made all sorts of 
thrt^ats against us. We were used to threats. 

The following morning the outfit turned out in 
"dress" uniform and fixed bayonets and belts as 
white as starch. At 6 :30 we were on our way to 
the docks where the review was to take place, the 
colonel leading with his famous fish band on his 
heels. Wise cracks w^ere passed along the line 
and when we marched past the marine guard 
camp, they gave us the razz good and proper. I 
will admit we were marching like rookies but 
why? This was the first parade we had had in 
months and we were all out of marching form. 
WTiat could one expect? Besides, we did not want 
to parade and that means a lot. Well, we waited 
in the rain from seven until eleven and then along 
came "John." He must have had half the first 
army with him as his staff. He had more auto- 
mobiles with him than officers and he had some 
flock of officers, I'll say. However, he made a 
wonderful appearance before us and all the men 
liked him. Instead of marching in review before 
the general, we were ordered to "open ranks and 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 123 

prepare for inspection." Pershing then walked 
up and down in front of each Battery, stopping 
here and there to speak to different individuals, 
quite democratically. Having inspected the en- 
tire regiment, he made a short speech wherein 
he told us that we were booked for home in short 
order. We believed him. He also told us how 
the American people appreciated our work at the 
front, and how our reward awaited us in America. 
After this oration, he inspected the docks and 
warehouses and we went ''stumbling" home, wet 
to the skin, our rifles coated with rust, disgusted 
with everything especially the salmon we had for 
mess. 

That night our chaplain explained to us that 
he had had a conference with the S. 0. S. authori- 
ties and they were going to send an inspector to 
the camp to check up on the spirit of the men and 
to find out the cause for our low morale. With 
this information on hand, we prepared for the in- 
spector. The next morning bright and early, we 
had over a dozen fellows with bamboo poles "fish- 
ing" in the malaria holes which were filled with 
dirty muddy water, supposedly cuckoo, that's all. 
Others were reciting Christmas poems on the 
roofs of the billets. A crowd of "would be" 
maniacs was gathered in the movie house singing 
funeral songs and ditties about our regimental 
leader. We had Al. Garry running about the camp 
dressed in a German uniform with a mob on his 
heels with rifles yelling that he was an escaped 
German prisoner. At a very critical moment in 



124 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

strutted a major from Bordeaux on the inspection 
tour. Sweet canaries ! When he saw the men with 
the fishing poles, his face turned a rainbow laven- 
der. He did not know what to say. As soon as 
the men saw that he was the inspector, they 
started howling, ''We're loco, we're crazy, take 
us out of this hole. We're dying like flies." Such 
was the line of bunk we handed him. Did 
he fain Well, I should scream, and heavy, too. 
After a hurried conversation with the colonel, he 
blimped off for Bordeaux. Three days later the 
regiment was relieved of dock duty and we 
prepared for entrance to Embarkation Camp 
No. 1. 

On April 2nd, we went through a grilling hike 
up the hill overlooking the sluggish Gironde, on 
our way to No. 1. It was a mean hike and the 
sun beat down on us causing a lot of discomfort. 
Towards the end of the hike the sun took the gate 
and rain poured down on us in torrents. More 
than one had a cold the next day. 

Upon arriving at the camp, we had our first 
meeting with the lltli Engineers. They were a 
fine bunch of men the majority being one hundred 
per cent New Yorkers with eighteen months active 
service in France, the boys who fought the Jerrys 
with shovels at Cambrai. Wonderful men, every- 
one of them and didn't give a rap for the best 
"Sam Brown" in the A. E. F. They took a 
liking to our outfit because we were from New 
York and we had plenty of francs. They even 
liked us better after we lost our pay to them in 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 125 

Faro and Klondike. We got along fine, however, 
and had no fights. 

The shows in camp were pretty fair but not 
worth telling the folks at home about and we were 
glad when we received orders to leave for Camp 
No. 2. 

Embarkation Camp No. 2 was the Delousing 
Camp and the last hop-off pavilion for the States. 
In this camp we had wonderful amusements with 
an assortment of Y. M. C. A., Salvation Army 
and Jewish Welfare League huts keeping us en- 
tertained while we waited our chance to be packed 
and shipped to America. I dare not mention the 
ordeal we went through in the delouser. I want 
to forget all that, especially the shave with a tin 
safety razor and no soap nor water. The less 
written about it, the better. 

Sewell, O'Brien and a gang of jazz-hounds 
formed a little burlesque on the regimental show, 
''The Wliizbangs." We put it over pretty well 
at the J. W. B. hut and we then decided to play 
all the welfare huts. It pulled big in the Salva- 
tion Army hut because we had a Victrola behind 
the scenes on which we produced some of the finest 
of Irish opera. In the Y. M. hut No. 2 we did not 
fare so well as one of our acrobats did a handflip, 
pure accident of course, and he landed off the 
stage pulling the scenery and movie curtain after 
him. Morgan tried to deliver Toscin's "Fare- 
well" amidst the confusion in order to hold the 
audience for the collection. We always passed a 
cootie catcher through the audience to get cocoa 



126 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

money for the actors but this time the crowd 
samitered out without giving us a tumble and we 
had no cocoa money. 

April 3rd was scheduled to be a knockout in 
Bordeaux soldier theatricals. The ^'Whizbang 
Burlesquers" were booked to play at the Victory 
Theatre, which was the largest army show house 
in France. Posters were put up everywhere and 
Sewell delivered some eloquent orations from bat- 
tery washstands boosting the actors and the com- 
ing show. It was to be without doubt, the most 
masterful production ever put on by soldier talent 
in Europe. Reny was as busy as a one-armed 
paper hanger with the hives getting the costumes 
and writing up the lines. 

April 3rd finally came and the show was to be 
put on at 2 P.M. As early as 12 :30 troops were 
charging towards the "Victory" anxious to se- 
cure front seats and boxes of the theatre. One 
thirty — standing room only with M. P.'s keeping 
the crowds out. At 1 :45 the show boys with Sewell 
leading, steamed up the side aisle headed for the 
stage door. O'Brien closed up the rear with a 
violin case under one arm and a dirty looking dog 
under the other. The audience shook the house 
with applause, Sewell majestically bowing as he 
reached the top of the steps leading to the stage 
entrance. Three minutes before the curtain was 
scheduled to rise, we found we had no piano 
player, Reny, our coach, was missing and we had 
no "parts" — the jazzband was placed on K. P. 
the last moment and the costumes were stolen by 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 127 

some sorehead member of the original ''Whiz- 
bangs. ' ' Otherwise, the show was ready to start. 
The same state of affairs existed at 2 :10 and some 
of the audience started clapping. At 2:30 the 
audience changed to a mob of hoodlums, stamping 
their hob nails and whistling for the show to 
come on. Behind the scenes everything was a 
mass of confusion and disorder. Nobody seemed 
to be in charge and no one had nerve enough to 
venture out on the stage to announce a postpon- 
ment of the show. One by one the chorus slipped 
}ut the back door. Wliat could be done? O'Brien sud- 
denly smiled, then laughed, spoke to Sewell for a 
minute and then hopped oat on the stage, the audi- 
ence applauding heavily — then quiet reigned. 

O'Brien bowed and with a drawn out, presi- 
dential cough started to speak in a deep base 
voice. 

"Thank you, my dear fellow-soldiers and 
heroes, I deeply regret you gentlemen having to 
wait so long for our production but I will waste 
no more time making apologies. I am sure you 
mil be pleased with our first number, Senor Ed- 
wardo Leopold Stewartoli, an ambitious Italian 
violinist." O'Brien then waited in embarrass- 
ment for several moments one hand pointing to 
the curtain, the other held in the air. Sewell 
slipped out of one of the folds of the curtain, a 
high hat set rakishly on his dome, violin case 
under his arm and the meat-hound tied to his 
legging strap. His foolish grin with hanging jaw 
won the audience from the start. WThen the ap- 



128 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

plause subdued, 'Brien continued, his hand rest- 
ing gently on Sewell's back. 

"Senor Stewartoli played recently before the 
crowned heads of Europe and after much coaxing, 
he has consented to play before a soldier audience. 
He is a forceful performer on the instrument, 
zealous in all his readings and earnest in his ef- 
forts. His program will begin with the Bach- 
Taussig Taccata and Tugue in "D" minor. The 
list will range from the classic technical test to a 
pretty poem by Mana Zucca Zucca and from a 
typical Mendelssohn example to four exotic rhap- 
sodies by Dohananiji. Besides these, Senor 
Stewartoli will be heard in *'Orientale" by 
Amani; a ballad and a dance by DeBusoy, "The 
Garden of Sympathy" and "Souls" by Scott; a 
colonial song and a paraphrase on Tscharkowsky's 
Flower Song by Graingu. I am sure you will be 
pleased with the program. ' ' 

The speech seemed to daze most of the crowd 
and they applauded wildly as O'Brien bowed him- 
self off the stage, leaving Sewell to his misery. 
"Ole Boy Eddie" was never in a tighter fix in all 
his life. He uttered something that sounded like 
Patrick Henry's last speech, as he fumbled with 
the catch on the violin case. The audience was 
anxious and intense. The sun's rays could be 
heard beating a death march on the roof. Silence 
reigned otherwise. Sewell suddenly opened the 
case and a ten cent harmonica clattered to the 
floor breaking the death-like silence. He immedi- 
ately picked it up an(| started playing "Darktown 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 129 

Strutters' Ball." It didn't go. Didn't pull at all. 
The audience again changed to a mob of man- 
killers. There was much gnashing of teeth and 
Indian yells, wild western howls and all sorts of 
bellows. Bzzzz — something was coming Sewell's 
way and the poor kid must have thought it was a 
hand grenade the way he dove for the exit. As a 
matter of fact, it was only a spiked field shoe. In 
the wild confusion that followed, I dove for an 
exit and made haste towards my barrack. 

We were lying on our bunks talking over the 
whole "fizzle" when Ed. the poor but honest 
fiddler, dashed in breathless and covered with mud 
from head to foot. Without a word to say, he 
jumped into his bunk and covered his head with 
a blanket. That evening after mess more than 
two hundred angry inhabitants of Camp No. 2 
prowled around our billet looking for Senor 
Stewartoli. They were singing a pretty ballad 
written by the National Casket Company entitled, 
' ' I hear you calling me. ' ' Bricks began falling on 
our billet when the mob found that Sewell would 
not show his figure. They became so riotus that 
the M. P. reserve was called out and a general 
dispersement followed. For many days, Sewell 
laid low around Camp No. 2. 

Our regiment had a fairly good baseball team 
and we bet heavily on each game they played. In 
this manner, we succeeded in getting back some 
of the francs we lost to the different regiments on 
their Faro and Klondike games. There was no 
little rivalry between the 18th Engineers and our 



130 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

outfit and we were very sore when they licked 
our boys. 

Between sports and vaudeville shows the 
colonel tried to hold our morale up but it was be- 
ginning to dwindle once more — we wanted to go 
home, that was all. 

I happened to meet an ''ole one-stepper from 
Brooklyn" Jimmy Wellings, one time supporter 
of the Parisiene and Arcadia dance halls. He was 
a very close friend of Viola Delman and he showed 
me some pictures of her in stage costume. Jimmy 
and I had a couple of good dances together at a 
^'ball" in the Victory Theatre. The ''ball" was 
given under the auspices of the Y. M. C. A. There 
were six Y. M. girls, twelve army nurses and 
eighteen hundred soldiers in attendance. There 
were not quite enough girls to go ; around so 
Jimmy and I had to dance stag. Had a fairly 
good time with gangs of crackers and lemonade. 
We did not double upon the crackers we went 
around in a continuous circle. 

April 15th we turned out at 6:30 A.M. for 
parade which was to take place in Bordeaux in 
honor of Marshal Petain who was to arrive in the 
city, presumably to inspect the American docks 
and warehouses, the purchase of which was con- 
templated by the French Government. That morn- 
ing I was bawled out by the skipper for having a 
dirty uniform and I was told to go on K. P., thus 
missing the parade. But I had the horse laugh on 
the rest of the men when they came back from 
Bordeaux. They waited three hours in formation 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 131 

for "ole boy Pete." Wlieii he did arrive, he didn't 
give our outfit a rumble. 

Every second day Battery C was called upon 
to furnish a detail to clean camp or to do car- 
penter work. We generally turned out after 
reveille every morning for the top kicker to pick 
his men. One fine morning one of the wise crack- 
ing second loots took charge of the Battery. We 
knew something was in the wind and we were 
ready for him. He stood out in front of the as- 
sembled battery and after a lot of the ordinary 
foolish talk, ordered all typists, bookkeepers and 
clerks to step one pace forward. With the excep- 
tion of three men, the entire Battery stepped for- 
ward each man thinking he could duck the ''clean 
up detail" by working in the Battery office. The 
lieutenant bawled out : 

''All you men are clerks of some kind or other, 
therefore, you need some healthy exercise. Report 
in denims within fifteen minutes to dig sewers." 

What a beating we took. We were digging 
about an hour when a courier came along with 
orders for the regiment's details to turn in im- 
mediately as the outfit was scheduled to sail within 
two days. Being the eightieth time we had heard 
this rumor, at first took it for a joke and not one 
of us believed it until the Chaplain came along 
and confirmed the report. Nobody slept that night 
nor the next. We had speeches, cognac, cheers, 
fights, games and all sorts of what nots in our wild 
dilemma. 

On the night of April 14th 1919, the regiment 



132 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

marched down the winding roadway leading to 
the docks where our transport lay waiting for us. 
That was our last hike in France and I am almost 
positive not one of us howled or kicked about our 
packs or rifles. Dowai past the old Genicart motor 
park we marched, past the stevedore billets, nearly 
deserted now, each man with his thoughts on a 
big girl swinging a torch in New York Harbor 
and another girl at home patiently looking to- 
wards Europe. 

When we hit the Marine Guard camp, we 
^'rode" them unmercifully, calling them every- 
thing they were not and telling them they were a 
disgrace to the 5th and 6th Marines, those noble 
heroes of Belleaux and Vaux. The *' boots" were 
glad when our forms faded in the heavy mist, 
never more to bother them again. Into the rest 
room of the Red Cross we marched, the same old 
barracks where we use to stall and have coffee 
and sandwiches while on stevedore work. The 
girls treated us royally as they had remembered 
us from working around the docks two months 
previous. All the appreciation we could show for 
their kindness was with our cheers, and cheer we 
did. Our cheers shook the very rafters until they 
rattled like a mighty thunderclap. 

Wlien we finally marched out on to the dock and 
saw the "can" we were going to cross the lake in, 
our spirits dropped. She was the ''Santa Bar- 
bara," an old Grace Liner. Before the war when 
I was in the employ of the Texas Oil Company, I 
shipped gasoline on her to South America and I 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 133 

recalled that the Insurance Companies would 
charge high premiums on account of the unsea- 
worthiness of this boat. She was a little larger 
than a New York Harbor sight-seeing yacht and 
she lay very low in the water — our hearts were the 
same. Most of us were sore to think we had made 
the bloomin' war and then have to take a fifty-to- 
one chance of making the ocean on a tin can like 
the ''Santa Barbara." Nevertheless, we did not 
hesitate to march aboard and secure bunks, and 
were pleasantly surprised to find that each man 
was entitled to a bunk. 

The next morning, April 15th, the ' ' Santa Bar- 
bara" steamed slowly down the Gironde River, 
the "Chicago" with the 11th Engineers on board 
close behind. 

My gentle reader, why take up your time ex- 
plaining to 5^ou this sea voyage to America. 1 
could quote some of the "Ancient Mariner" in 
these pages but you well-read folk care not for 
such repetition. It was the sea, sea, sea — deep 
and mysterious, rough and sickening. It was 
nothing like "going over." There was no need 
for silence now nor of boat drills in the early 
morning. No target practice or submarine 
scares. There was no excitement. Of course, we 
enjoyed ourselves, lying in the sun on deck eight 
hours every day, listening to a victrola putting 
over Al Jolson's " Rock-a-bye. " It was a pleas- 
ure trip, except for the eats. We had an abund- 
ance of garbage which the sailors use to throw 
outside the galley, but we longed for something 



134 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

good to eat on a white plate with a knife and 
fork. Wlienever the sailors put out their leav- 
ings, the men would fill their hats with spuds or 
whatever they had and go in some dark corner 
to eat undisturbed. Outside of that, the trip was 
excellent. I dare not try to remember the storm 
nor my stomach when everything went over the 
rail save my clothes. 

However, on the twelfth day from France, we 
hit old Ambrosia, the lightship off New York. 
From then on there was a craning of necks look- 
ing for the Statue of Liberty — that was our quest. 
Once we saw the ''ole girl" everything would be 
gravy; only then would we be sure we were home 
once more. Soldiers were already swarming up 
the rigging and climbing on top of the galleys. I 
do not believe there was one soldier below decks 
when the ''Santa Barbara" steamed in sight of 
the Rockaways. We passed several big" craft com- 
ing out, one of them, the battleship "Wyoming" 
gave us a big hand. 

Time passed so rapidly that before we realized 
it, we passed the Forts and were well up the bay. 
Several tugs and barges were making for us, the 
people on them waving flags and shouting hyster- 
ically. One tug had on board the Mayor's AVel- 
come Committee, and the happy mob was shout- 
ing and bawling above the din of the bands of 
music. We did not know what it was all about, 
where we were, or what to do. The people then 
started throwing fruit at the sides of our boat. 
No brains. 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 135 

By this time we were well up the river and in 
short order we were docked at one of the army 
transport piers at South Brooklyn, among several 
other transports. Well, I shall never forget that 
pie and coffee the Red Cross gave us upon hitting 
the dock. ''Delicious" would be putting it mildly, 
and after the pie came cigars or cigarettes ; more 
pie, then candy, chewing gum and cake. It seemed 
to me the welfare organizations were trying to 
play a trump card in front of our relatives. We 
never received this abundance of gratis on the 
other side when we really needed it. But we had 
no time for such thoughts and we were really 
happy and glad to get home. Things were flying 
our way. 

From the dock we were hustled and bustled 
aboard a ferry boat which took us to the Ferry 
Terminal at Long Island City. Here were gath- 
ered some more "Welcomers" and I saw Johnny 
Morton and a few other wounded fellows from 
the outfit, already discharged. 

Yaphank. WTiat a wonderful camp it was with 
its spacious buildings, amusement centres, wel- 
fare organizations, and best of all, spring beds. 
The draftees used to kick about that ''barren waste 
of land. ' ' Some of them went as far as to commit 
suicide on account of the horrible conditions exist- 
ing when the camp was in its infancy. It was a 
wonder city to us with all the improvements of a 
metropolis. 

It was certainly queer how the somewhat rigid 
discipline of the army faded away when we ar- 



136 WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 

rived at this camp. Officers did not mean a thing 
to us. Men absolutely refused to get out of their 
bunks before ten A.M. Everything was done in a 
slipshod way. Sergeants suddenly fell down from 
their lofty pedestals and gambled with the 
"bucks." Sergeant Coslen, one of the meanest 
sneaks east of the Rockies, and by the way, my per- 
sonal enemy, began to get leary about his safe re- 
turn to his home. I guess he wanted to live to 
the end of his natural life. Only thirty men out of 
the Battery were supposed to go out on pass the 
first week-end; the whole outfit marched out the 
gate, never giving the guard a tumble. We were 
in camp five days when the men started growling 
about being discharged. The fools wanted to be 
discharged so they could go back to work. The 
intelligent personnel of the Battery did not care 
whether they were held for four more years or 
not. They were taking life easy, eating heavily 
and going out on pass regularly. Drawing our 
pay was embarrassing as we had not earned it; 
my conscience hurt to accept it on pay day. 

Of course, everything good ends quickly. The 
Army threw us out in the cold on the fatal day of 
May 7th, 1919. Threw us out bodily with a piece 
of paper in one hand and a sixty-dollar bonus in 
the other; didn't even say "thank you" for our 
services. Those sixty gumdrops went towards buy- 
ing a pair of shoes — and the discharge. I tried to 
exchange it for a cigarette on the train but my 
victim thought I was trying to swindle him. 

I can not say that that discharge didn't mean 



WITH THE YANKS IN FRANCE 137 

a thing to me for it did and it meant a whole lot. It 
meant two of my most valuable years in life gone ; 
thrown away like a burnt match. I found myself 
outside in the cold world with sixty-odd dollars, 
one 0. D. uniform, a wonderful appetite and an all 
too vivid imagination. My brain was as scattered 
as England's colonies. I was not fit to work in an 
office — couldn't even count how much money I 
owed. 

Well, I tossed the bottle of milk on the sidewalk 
and what was the use of crying about it. Oh! 
wothehel, I could go to the Old Soldiers' Home in 
a few years. I swore I would never answer the 
call to the colors if the nation ^succeeding in cook- 
ing up another war, but I am sure should our 
Country see fit to call upon us again, we would 
all answer the call as we did in that perilous 
period of 1917-18. Yes, we would go with the 
same old Yank spirit and determination, for, after 
all, is it not our country, our folks and our homes 
we are protecting? 



Finis. 



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